Trisha Yearwood Shares What She’s ‘Learned’ About Making Her Marriage to Husband Garth Brooks ‘Work’

Trisha Yearwood is opening up about her marriage to Garth Brooks.

While speaking at the “In Her Own Words: An Evening with Trisha Yearwood” event at The Paley Center for Media in New York City on Saturday, Nov. 8, the country singer, 61, reflected on how her life changed after tying the knot with Brooks, 63, in 2005. 

“When I married Garth and I moved to Oklahoma, I stopped,” Yearwood said. “I wasn’t touring 200 days a year anymore. 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.”

“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 first met in 1987 during a demo-recording session when both were unsigned artists in Nashville. After Brooks and his first wife, Sandy Mahl, divorced in 2001, he began dating Yearwood. The pair got married in December 2005. 

Brooks shares three daughters, Taylor, August and Allie, with Mahl.

Yearwood and Brooks have collaborated musically over the years, embarking on a three-year world tour and co-writing the song “For the Last Time” on Yearwood’s 2019 album, Let’s Be Frank.

Yearwood has also published four cookbooks, including her latest two, Trisha’s Table in 2015 and Trisha’s Kitchen in 2021. 

The singer released her new album, Christmastime, on Friday, Nov. 7. The tracklist features several classic holiday hits, such as “Christmastime Is Here,” “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town.”

The opening track on the album, Yearwood said, carries a special significance in her marriage with Brooks. 

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“I had a short list of things that I was like, ‘If I ever make another Christmas record, I want to do that.’ And the first song you just heard [“Christmas Time Is Here”] was the first song on that list because A Charlie Brown Christmas is my absolute favorite [album]. And I haven’t heard a ton of people record that song,” she explained.

Yearwood revealed: “I actually walked down the aisle [to] that song because we married in December. So that was my [wedding entrance song].”