--- title: Bonnie and Clyde Video Clip: How the Outlaws Met description: The notorious outlaw couple met on Jan. 5, 1930 canonical: https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/ author: Lily Rothman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-05T16:12:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:46:55.113Z article:section: History og:title: Bonnie and Clyde Video Clip: How the Outlaws Met og:description: The notorious outlaw couple met on Jan. 5, 1930 og:url: https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d5ef846185d1f49/6988778cab6d7755eb6a7d1d/bonnie-and-clyde.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: bonnie and clyde og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Bonnie and Clyde Video Clip: How the Outlaws Met twitter:description: The notorious outlaw couple met on Jan. 5, 1930 twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d5ef846185d1f49/6988778cab6d7755eb6a7d1d/bonnie-and-clyde.png?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # What Bonnie and Clyde Were Like Before Their Life of Crime  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 5, 2016 4:12 PM UTC  American Experience  by [Lily Rothman](https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/)  ## Lily Rothman Rothman is managing editor at TIME. Jan 5, 2016 4:12 PM UTC The death of Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in a hail of bullets while on the run from the law has become an American legend. But how they lived before their infamous 1930s crime spree is far less well known. Both Bonnie and Clyde were children of the 1920s, living in poverty in pre-Depression Texas. As shown in this exclusive clip from the upcoming PBS American Experience documentary _Bonnie & Clyde_, premiering Jan. 19, what the two were trying to get away from is key to understanding why they took such drastic steps to escape. Bonnie in particular made a drastic shift, from a good student to a teenage wife of an abusive husband to just the kind of bored and disadvantaged young woman who was looking for a man like Clyde. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/"},"headline":"What Bonnie and Clyde Were Like Before Their Life of Crime","datePublished":"2016-01-05T16:12:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:46:55.113Z","description":"The notorious outlaw couple met on Jan. 5, 1930","url":"https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/","keywords":["Crime","People"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d5ef846185d1f49/6988778cab6d7755eb6a7d1d/bonnie-and-clyde.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lily Rothman","jobTitle":"Rothman is managing editor at TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/lily-rothman/"}],"articleSection":"History","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt5d5ef846185d1f49/6988778cab6d7755eb6a7d1d/bonnie-and-clyde.png?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"bonnie and clyde","caption":"","creditText":"American Experience","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/history/","name":"History"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4167462/bonnie-and-clyde-meeting-video/","name":"What Bonnie and Clyde Were Like Before Their Life of Crime"}}]}] ```