With three Grammys, 14 ACMs, and two AMAs under his belt, Brad Paisley is certainly not any run-of-the-mill Nashville-residing country star. Although not on par with the best-known artists in the genre like Shania Twain, Garth Brooks, George Strait, and Dolly Parton, Paisley is still known as one of the most consistent hitmakers for the last several decades. Paisley landed his first hit He Didn't Have to Be in 1999 and since has been thriving as the clean-cut cowboy, whose niche is best described as a modern, mainstream country and western star.
Bradley Douglas Paisley was born on October 28, 1972, in Glen Dale, West Virginia. He was inducted into Grand Ole Opry early into his career but despite his early success, Bradley hasn't branched his career into any other domain and usually keeps it to himself. The country star recently swooped into the spotlight and garner much love after he visited war-torn Ukraine and showed the country his unanimous support by releasing his song, Same Here, featuring Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Inside Brad Paisley's Married Life!
Paisley and his wife, Kimberly Williams, commemorated their 20th anniversary recently in March. Did the country crooner manifest the beautiful actress in his life? Well, Paisley's anecdote on how he first met Kimberly hints at so. The three-time Grammy winner says he and a former girlfriend of his were watching Kimberly's breakout film, Father of the Bride, in 1991 when he first saw the actress. The next time Brad saw Kimberly in different circumstances. He had broken up with his girlfriend and was watching the sequel of Father of the Bride alone.
"I thought, 'She seems like a great girl — smart and funny and all those things that are so hard to find," Paisley recalls thinking while watching his future wife on the screen. The Whiskey Lullaby hitmaker met his celebrity crush when he had her star in his music video for I'm Gonna Miss Her. "It felt natural to ask her to be in it," Brad explains, adding "Even though I didn't know if she was married, divorced, or just out of rehab."
The pair started dating in 2001. They say men only change themselves for one woman and needless to say, Kimberly evoked that certain feeling in the country singer, who says, "I really said to myself, ‘This time I’m not going to play games. I'm not going to pretend I'm somebody else, or do things I won't be proud of later." The so-meant-to-be pair got engaged after a few months of dating and walked down the aisle on March 15, 2003, at the Stauffer Chapel at Pepperdine University.
The country singer and his wife welcomed their firstborn, William Huckleberry in 2007 and their second son, Jasper Warren born in 2009. The happy spouses renewed their wedding vows in 2015 and unlike the conventional ceremony, Kimberly took the game up a notch and executed a campy and off-beat ceremony at a friend's place. The twosome has since achieved several milestones, including the duo's partnership with Belmont University to open a grocery store, which also provides health, legal, and legal aids to its customers.
"This has been our dream. People will be able to come and shop with dignity and make choices for their families," Brad's wife said in her statement. Kimberly, 51, has had a stellar acting career. Some of her best-known credits are According to Jim, musical drama Nashville, Father of the Bride, Less Than Perfect, and Boston Legal.
Inside Brad Paisley's Dating History!
The Grammy-winning singer didn't have much going before he met Kimberly. In fact, coinciding with many of his fellow country celebs, Paisley's dating headlines were rare. The singer, however, had one relationship that went south for no fault of his own. Paisley started dating Award-winning country singer Chely Wright in 2000. Wright had famously dated Vince Gill before Paisley, with whom she even collaborated on the track Hard to be Husband, Hard to be Wife.
The country singers were the ultimate power couple until a secret strained their relationship. The reason behind their split was unknown at the time it happened until Wright decided to come clean in her 2010 autobiography, Like Me: Confessions of a Heartland Country Singer. The singer infamously came out of the closet and told the secret that ended her relationship with Paisley. Wright had long known her sexuality but kept it hidden from Brad, all while dating a woman on and off for 12 years.
"Brad is a really good person. I feel like Brad respects me. I don't know if he ever hated me at some point. If he did, I wouldn't blame him," Wright said after her explosive autobiography was released. Although Paisley kept mum about Wright's coming out and her confession about their long-dissolved relationship, Chely expressed regret for treating Paisley poorly and even breaking his heart. Wright has been married to Lauren Blitzer since 2011.
Stay connected to Married Wiki for more.