Trisha Yearwood is a country music queen, but she's also an everyday American girl.
Over the course of her decades-long career, she's maintained the same authenticity and
relatability that she's had from day one. Here's a look at her stunning transformation.
Patricia Lynn Yearwood was born on September 19, 1964 in the farm town of Monticello, Georgia.
In her song "XXX's and OOO's," she romantically reminisces about tying "hair up in ribbons
and bows" and "a picture of her mama in heels and pearls," and those images aren't far from
the truth. Her mother Gwen was a schoolteacher, while her father Jack was a banker, and the
two fostered their daughter's love of classic country singers like Patsy Cline and Hank
Williams. Trisha's parents also inspired her love of cooking, and their small community
helped her keep a good head on her shoulders. As she told Good Housekeeping in 2010,
"I don't know if I was a good kid by nature or if I was well-behaved because I realized
that if I did something wrong, my parents would probably know about it before I got
home."
Yearwood was a good student, as she was voted "Outstanding Senior Girl" in her high school
graduating class in 1982. Everyone in her town knew she had big aspirations, and she
hit the road soon after turning her tassel.
In 1985, Yearwood loaded up her pickup truck and headed out to Nashville, where she attended
Belmont University and majored in business administration. Thanks to an internship with
MTM Records, she learned the inner workings of the industry and started to make a name
for herself as a demo singer.
Through this demo work, she happened to meet a little-known country crooner by the name
of Garth Brooks. The two cut a demo together in a tiny attic studio owned by songwriter
Kent Blazy. Her paycheck was $10, while Brooks sang for free. But the real payoff was worth
much more and still yet to come. As Yearwood recounted to CMT in 2009,
"We hit it off. But I had no idea he'd turn out to be Garth Brooks!"
Brooks recruited her to sing backup for his 1989 self-titled debut album and his follow-up
No Fences the next year, while also promising that she could open for him on tour once he
got big. Of course, there would be plenty more collaboration between the two of them
in the years to come.
Yearwood's success as a backup singer, along with her endorsement by Garth Brooks, helped
her land a showcase performance in 1990 that led to a record deal with MCA. Her self-titled
debut album was released shortly thereafter in July 1991. It featured the bubbly and heartwarming
lead single "She's in Love With the Boy," which quickly shot to the top of the country
charts. The cutesy tale of teenage love despite the odds was only the beginning of that album's
success, as the follow-up singles "The Woman Before Me," "That's What I Like About You,"
and "Like We Never Had a Broken Heart" also cracked the country top ten.
Thanks to Yearwood's handful of radio hits as well as her stint touring with Brooks,
she became the first female singer in country music history to sell a million copies of
her debut album. The record would ultimately go on to be certified double platinum, and
Yearwood went on to take home Top New Female Vocalist at the 1991 ACM Awards. She continued
to dominate country music throughout the 90s, as she released a string of top ten hits.
Her second album, 1992's Hearts in Armor, was released to critical acclaim, with Entertainment
Weekly raving,
"Hearts in Armor showcases her voice as the first record never did, revealing a purity
of tone and pitch and an ability to wrench the utmost emotion from a lyric."
The album featured the top five hits "Wrong Side of Memphis" and "Walkaway Joe," the latter
of which featured an adorably young Matthew McConaughey in the music video. It would also
go on to be certified platinum, as it made Yearwood's creativity and ambition perfectly
clear to everyone who was listening. Her third album, 1993's The Song Remembers When, was
also warmly received by critics. It managed to sell over a million copies, while its wistful
title track made it all the way to number two on the country charts.
As Yearwood's career was taking off, her personal life wasn't going quite so well. She married
her first husband Chris Latham in 1987, and while the two stayed together through her
formative years in the industry, their union wasn't able to last forever, as they called
it quits in 1991. Yearwood went on to marry The Mavericks bassist Robert Reynolds in 1994,
but that relationship, too, would only last a few years, ending with divorce in 1999.
Yearwood told Country Weekly in 2000 that the divorce was "difficult," adding,
"It's hard to move on. And it's easy to drag things out so you don't have to face people
talking about you."
Yearwood also admitted to questioning herself, as she noted,
"You wonder if something’s wrong with you — which is pretty much where I’ve been.
But I know I’m a good person.
By this time, Yearwood had already met Garth Brooks, who would go on to become her forever
love, but at the moment, her career was at the front of her mind. As she told Country
Weekly,
"I'm a good Southern girl who grew up wanting to please everybody. I didn’t want to say
or do anything to make people uncomfortable. That makes any kind of change a horrible,
gut-wrenching experience for me — even if it's the best thing."
In the years since, Yearwood has rarely spoken publicly about her exes. That privacy is hardly
unexpected, considering that she's maintained healthy boundaries as a public figure since
the beginning of her career. As she told Country Weekly,
"There are parts of my life I want to keep private, and I know my fans will understand."
But at least Yearwood's professional life was still cruising along, as she came back
strong with her eighth studio album Real Live Woman. The album and its title track both
scored nominations at the 2000 Grammy Awards, and her post-divorce clarity seemed to give
her newfound confidence. As she told Country Weekly,
"[One] thing that drew me to Real Live Woman is its statement about physical perfection.
I think I’m going to be the poster child for accepting yourself the way you are, even
though I struggle with that every day."
Yearwood has also branched out into acting, and the biggest part of her career came on
the CBS military show JAG, in which she played a Navy lieutenant and forensic pathologist
for six episodes from 1997 to 2002. She described her character to the Chicago Tribune as, quote,
"a really smart woman and very (much) an expert in what she does," while adding that the role
marked the first time she truly played "a character." The gig's minimal commitment made
it an ideal outlet for expanding her talents without imposing too much on her music schedule.
As she told the Tribune,
"It doesn't interfere with the music at all, and it allows me a chance to try my acting
in an atmosphere that I'm comfortable in."
"Thanks for flying in." "Thank the Armed Forces DNA Identification Lab. I didn't want to come."
Yearwood's other notable on-screen credits include the Virgin Mary in Fox's 2016 musical
special The Passion and a cameo as herself in a 2014 episode of Nashville. Acting may
not be her main focus, but she does have some thespian ambitions in mind. As she revealed
to In Touch in 2017, she'd be open to Broadway or a small part in an independent film.
In 1997, Yearwood was tapped to sing "How Do I Live" for the soundtrack of the action
film Con Air. Her rendition failed to duplicate the crossover success that LeAnn Rimes' version
of the same song achieved, but Yearwood's was ultimately featured in the film. It also
led to her earning the "country music triple crown," as she won Best Female Vocalist at
both the ACM and CMA Awards, as well as Best Female Country Vocal Performance at the Grammys.
The soundtrack hit led to Yearwood's invitation to join legendary country music venue The
Grand Ole Opry as its 71st member in 1999. She was no stranger to the stage, having married
her second husband Robert Reynolds in the Opry's Ryman Auditorium in 1994.
Trisha Yearwood's romantic relationship with Garth Brooks was a long time coming, considering
that they knew each other before they were famous and had recorded a handful of seductive
duets together. Their 1997 track "In Another's Eyes," which recalls the inner turmoil of
cheating, was released while Brooks was still married to his first wife Sandy Mahl and Yearwood
was married to Robert Reynolds. The song ended up earning them a Grammy for Best Country
Collaboration with Vocals. Back when they first met, Brooks immediately sensed that
there was something between him and Yearwood. As he told Ellen DeGeneres in 2013,
"Well it's strange, because I felt that feeling like when you just meet your wife, but I've
been married for 13 months."
Brooks and Sandy Mahl officially divorced in 2000, at which point he quietly began dating
Yearwood, and they ultimately got married in 2005. In 2000, Yearwood told Country Weekly,
"I’ve never believed I won’t be complete without children. I’ve only cared about
my music."
Despite that sentiment, she embraced Brooks' three daughters wholeheartedly. As she told
People Magazine in 2010,
"When we got married five years ago, we married the girls, so the five of us always celebrate
together."
After the release of 2001's Inside Out, Yearwood took a four year hiatus from new music as
her relationship with Garth Brooks started to bloom. Her tenth album Jasper County was
then released in 2005 along the backdrop of her engagement to Brooks. She had previously
relocated from Nashville to Oklahoma, where Brooks had retired to raise his family, and
she adjusted well. As she told CMT at the time,
"I wasn't sure if I could do it or not [...] I just thought, 'How am I going to do this?
I love this man, so I want to be where he is. And this is where he is going to be raising
his children. So if I’m going to be with him, I have to go do this.'"
The world was hooked on their love story, and fans were eager to check out Yearwood's
new music, as Jasper County scored the highest peak of her career on the Billboard album
charts. One of the tracks was "Love Will Always Win," a duet with Brooks that became a top
40 country hit.
In 2008, Yearwood dove into the culinary world with the release of her first cookbook, Georgia
Cooking in an Oklahoma Kitchen. As she explained to People Magazine,
"I love to cook — it's second to music, my greatest passion."
She's released two more cookbooks since then, and she's revealed that she has plans for
a fourth. In 2012, she took her foodie passion to the small screen as the host of Food Network's
Trisha's Southern Kitchen. The show features her cooking mostly her own recipes, alongside
various notable guests, including her husband. The show is still going strong, and it won
an Emmy for Outstanding Culinary Program in 2013. Yearwood never imagined that she'd be
a TV chef, considering that she didn't discover cooking until she began to miss her mother's
home cooked meals while she was in college. As she explained to the Lincoln Journal Star
in 2018,
"I'm a Virgo, so by nature I'm in the middle of everything I do, but I like that."
"So pull up a front-row seat in my kitchen, where everything is easy to make, and everything
is home-cooked."
After a decades-long career of singing, acting, and cooking, Yearwood still isn't done. In
2019, she released Every Girl, her 15th studio album, with rave reviews making it clear that
she's still as valuable to the country world as she's ever been.
"There's a few more records coming, I think."
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus, even more Nicki Swift videos about your
favorite stars are coming soon. Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so
you don't miss a single one.