Trisha Yearwood explained why she put her career on pause after marrying country music star Garth Brooks.
Yearwood chose to focus on her marriage and family, despite her initial success with the 1991 hit, “She’s in Love with the Boy.” Yearwood’s self-titled debut album – which went double platinum – cemented her as one of the leading female country music artists of the 1990s. That all changed for Yearwood in the 2000s.
“When I married Garth and I moved to Oklahoma, I stopped,” Yearwood said at the “In Her Own Words: An Evening with Trisha Yearwood” event, according to People magazine.
“I wasn’t touring 200 days a year anymore,” she explained. “I was a bonus mom to three children, and I was trying to make a marriage work, because I had learned that marriages don’t work if you’re never together.”
She emphasized that being physically present was a deliberate choice to build a strong family life.
“That’s kind of important. You have to be together,” she added. “I made a conscious effort to be there, to go to soccer games and cook dinner.”
Yearwood and Brooks have been married since 2005, and she is a “bonus mom” to his three children: Taylor, August, and Allie, from his marriage to Sandy Mahl.
The two started out as friends in the 1980s and often collaborated together before Brooks’ divorce in 2001. They struck up a romantic relationship and married in a private ceremony near Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Since marrying, Yearwood has been outspoken about how she consciously shifted some parts of her career and prioritized family life. When the musician was honored with the inaugural June Carter Cash Humanitarian award at the 2024 CMT Music Awards, she credited her family for keeping her grounded.
“I was raised by really great parents,” Yearwood exclusively shared with Fox News Digital at the time. “My mom and dad, who are both passed on, but they’re still with me … My sister’s my date tonight because Garth couldn’t be here. It’s family. It’s about how you’re raised.”
She added, “I always say, ‘I don’t always do the right thing, but I know what the right thing is because of how I was raised.’ It’s them; it’s my family.”
Throughout the 1990s, Yearwood saw success with songs such as “Walkaway Joe,” “The Song Remembers When,” “XXX’s and OOO’s (An American Girl)” and “How Do I Live.”
Yearwood took home three Grammy Awards and received several honors from the Country Music Association and the Academy of Country Music.
After taking a step back from her music career, Yearwood found a new passion. She premiered her own southern-inspired cooking show on the Food Network in 2012. “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen” ran for 17 seasons before its conclusion in 2022.
She received a Daytime Emmy Award for the show and also authored several cookbooks.
The “There Goes My Baby” singer has seen support from Brooks throughout it all. Yearwood recently referred to Brooks as the “love of my life” after receiving her own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in March.
“He’s my person. He has accomplished so much in his career, but he is happiest when other people win,” she told Extra.
“And I think he just believes in me so much, and he believes that I deserve more than I believe I deserve, so I know that he’s genuinely the happiest person here today.”
During the ceremony, Yearwood called Brooks her biggest cheerleader.
“The first Garth that I met is here, and the one that has really been a cheerleader,” Yearwood told the crowd of family, friends and press. “And as many accolades and awards as he has won, I’ve never seen him get more excited than he does when I receive something.”
Yearwood added, “For all the people that want this for me, nobody wants it more than you, and I just appreciate you for, you know… we’re down a few stars from each other, but we’re going to figure something out.”
