The Pioneer Woman's Ree and Ladd Drummond are arguably the most wholesome power couple
in America. But there's more to Ladd, or, as Ree calls him, the Marlboro Man, than meets
the eye. Here's what you need to know about the soft-spoken Food Network star.
When a newly single Ree had come home to Oklahoma from California to regroup and apply for law
school in Chicago, she spied a handsome stranger at a smoky bar one night and was smitten,
she told BookPage. That man, of course, was Ladd Drummond, now her longtime husband. Ree
never wound up moving to Chicago.
Even though the Drummonds are long past the honeymoon stage, they've put in the work necessary
to sustain their marriage. Ree said,
"I don't believe that romance conquers all and love conquers all. But the passion, I
don't know, it propels you forward through the tough times."
But their storybook romance might never have been if Ree hadn't been patient. Ladd didn't
call her the day after they first met. Or the next week. He waited four whole months
to call back, according to an article Ree penned in Country Living.
Believe it or not, Ree was once a vegetarian, according to her blog. Of course, that didn't
stick, and it's likely because of Ladd. He told People,
"I'm kind of a picky eater, so I'm not the best guy in the world to cook for. I'm a man
who just really likes meat and mashed potatoes."
Having a vegetarian chef in the house just wasn't going to work out for him, and Ree
obviously didn't mind the conversion. She has no moral objections to raising and eating
animals, as long as it's done humanely. She wrote on her blog,
"I believe we treat the animals with the utmost care and regard, and I believe we have canine
teeth because we were meant to eat animal flesh."
She also revealed to People what ended her dabbling in vegetarianism:
"Ladd cooked me a steak sizzling in butter, and it was all over."
Ladd also isn't a big fan of seafood. Ree said on The Bobby Bones Show,
"He doesn't like anything weird to eat. He just likes chicken-fried steak and not a lot
of flavors that he wasn't eating in 1973."
But Ree didn't know that about Ladd when they started dating. So when she cooked for him
for the first time, she made him one of her favorite dishes: linguine with clam sauce.
And rather than be rude, Ladd ate every bite, plus half of the next plate she served him.
Ree didn't find out the truth until much later.
Ree got pregnant on her honeymoon and spent the next seven years bearing and raising four
children. According to The New Yorker, one day, Ladd took all four children out on the
range, leaving Ree alone with her thoughts. That's what gave her the time to start her
blog, The Pioneer Woman, which was the seed for what's now an empire of cookbooks, a television
show, a line of homeware, a restaurant and retail store, and a hotel.
But Ree didn't come up with these ideas on her own. It was Ladd who encouraged her to
start her blog, according to People magazine. And he later came up with the idea for the
hotel and more. According to Ree,
"Every good idea I've had has come from him. I think of myself as this independent woman
who can handle everything herself, but I really trust his opinion."
The Drummonds' marriage appears very traditional, the cowboy spends the day on the range, while
his wife spends the day in the kitchen. But Ladd's more progressive than one might think,
work aside. Ree told People,
"The optics of our marriage are that it is very traditional. But in many ways, [it] is
anything but traditional."
For one, Ladd often takes care of the kids so that Ree has time to work, whether that
means driving them to soccer practice, having them work outside with him, or holding down
the fort while she's away on business. Ree's mother shared in an interview with The New
Yorker,
"They've always been a team. And this, coming from a Western ranch culture in which the
men have traditionally been the kings."
For Ladd, one thing is absolutely certain: Ranching is in his blood. He's the co-owner
of Drummond Land & Cattle Co., along with his brother Tim, and is a part of one of the
top ranching families in America, according to People. The ranch where Ladd's extended
family resides has been in the family for five generations. The house where he grew
up is where he now lives with Ree and the kids. There's even a family cemetery on the
property.
So do Ree and Ladd plan to make their children stay and work the land as he, and his father,
did? Ree wrote on her blog,
"We want them to be able to come back if they want to. But we don't want them to feel chained
to the life if they want to go in another direction."
The Drummond family has not been untouched by tragedy. Ladd himself lost a family member
at a very young age. Ree shared in a post on her blog,
"[Ladd's] oldest brother Todd was killed in a car accident when Todd was eighteen, the
summer before he left for college."
Todd had been working on a family friend's ranch in Texas at the time. His passing shook
the Drummond family to the core; according to another post on Ree's blog, it was
"Tragic, life-altering, terrible. Anyone who's lost a loved one to a car accident knows how
much it rocks a family."
Ree and Ladd have done their part to keep his memory alive. They named their youngest
son after him.
The Drummonds are one of the top ranching families in the country, but that doesn't
mean money's never been a problem. The first decade of Ree and Ladd's marriage was a big
fiscal challenge. Ladd told People,
"We had financial struggles; we had everything that every couple goes through in the early
years."
He was referring specifically to the dive his business took thanks to Mad Cow disease
in the 1990s. The Drummonds had to tighten their belts to weather the financial storm.
Ladd continued,
"The first six years that Ree and I were married we didn't take a single vacation, and she
never complained once."
Clearly all that patience has paid off, because the Drummonds sure are loaded now. On top
of the $23.9 million they had received as of November 2017 from the Bureau of Land Management
for allowing wild horses and burros on their property, Ree is worth an estimated $8 million
by herself, according to AOL.
Running a 433,000-acre cattle ranch isn't light work by any stretch. There's so much
to do, in fact, that Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only two days of the year that the
family doesn't have to work, according to People.
But that doesn't mean they work 24 hours a day, so Ladd is able to score some downtime
in the evenings. And how does he unwind? Why, watching movies on Netflix on the couch with
his wife, of course. Ree revealed to People,
"He's watched every movie that's ever been made."
But you won't catch Ladd streaming all the episodes of Godless at once. That's because
he "doesn't believe in binge-watching," Ree says.
Ree and Ladd Drummond have been married since 1996, as noted by People magazine. But when
a blog reader asked Ree what her wedding was like, or if they did anything special at the
reception, she had a surprising answer. She wrote,
"The only thing special about the reception was that Marlboro Man was holed up in the
men's locker room watching Arizona State (his alma mater) play Nebraska, the defending national
champions...ASU won, and Marlboro Man wasn't missing it either for the world or for our
wedding reception. He says the game was a good omen."
At least he made it to the ceremony.
Ree Drummond doesn't like the word "empire" to describe the Drummond businesses, but it's
pretty apt: There's her cooking show, cookbooks, branded products, a restaurant and hotel,
and a sprawling ranch with cattle as far as the eye can see. They've even been credited
with helping to revitalize downtown Pawhuska, Oklahoma, thanks to their ventures there.
The expansion into downtown Pawhuska wasn't something that Ladd initially had full confidence
in. He spoke candidly about the Pioneer Woman Mercantile on CBS Sunday Morning:
"I told Ree two weeks before we opened, I said, 'We might have lost our mind. I don't
know if anybody's coming to Pawhuska."
Fortunately for the Drummonds, legions of fans make their way to the remote Oklahoma
outpost to dine, shop, and, if they're lucky, grab a selfie with the Pioneer Woman herself.
When Ladd and Ree Drummond got married more than two decades ago, things at the homestead
were a little more traditional than they are today. In a speech inducting Ree into the
Oklahoma Hall of Fame, Ladd said,
"While I did most of the ranch work, and Ree handled the more domestic responsibilities,
she was always game to help around the ranch."
That even included accompanying Ladd when he went out to open or close gates on the
property, of which there are many. But Ree really stepped up when necessity demanded
it, something Ladd says was invaluable to their survival. He said of his wife,
"When our longtime ranch secretary quit, Ree saved my bacon by stepping up and running
the ranch office by herself."
Ladd said Ree probably never wants to see another feed bill ever again.
Though Ladd Drummond is not a man of many words, he's never at a loss when it comes
to kind things to say about his wife, Ree. In his speech inducting her into the Oklahoma
Hall of Fame, he said,
"Basically, Ree was a great mother, homemaker, cook, wife, ranch secretary, and all around
helper around the ranch."
Ladd took a step further, too, as he literally said that Ree was everything that his family
could have wanted for him. He continued,
"All my mother's prayers that I would find a good wife, I think she was truly worried
about my brother Tim and me, had been answered."
The Drummonds really do seem to have it all. With a lucrative ranch, a wildly successful
brand, and a loving family, it's no wonder that so many people tune in to see how they
live. None of that is lost on Ladd, either, who loves the way his life has unfolded. He
told NCBA's Cattlemen to Cattlemen,
"We truly are blessed. Getting to work with the kids and having Ree around, and we're
all on the ranch together, I mean it's truly just a blessing."
While it's not abnormal for the industry he works in, Ladd really does love being a working
family man. He loves working with members of his family, saying,
"That's what makes it really the most fun of everything, is being able to work with
everybody I work with...Like a lot of ranching operations, we have a lot of family involved,
and that's probably really the best part about it."
For a long time, fans of the Pioneer Woman didn't really know exactly who Ree and Ladd
Drummond were, as she didn't disclose their last name. She also referred to her husband
as the "Marlboro Man," instead of using his real name. Why? She wanted, quote, "to maintain
a tiny speck of anonymity," which obviously didn't last very long.
So where did Ree come up with his now-famous nickname? It didn't actually have anything
to do with smoking. Just his particular look and vibe. She told the Journal Sentinel,
"About a year after we got married, a woman...noticed my husband sitting on the porch. She said,
'Who is that Marlboro Man?' It stuck."
So does Ladd smoke like the Marlboro Man did, especially since the couple met in a smoky
bar? Ree says,
"He does not and he never has."
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