Odd Facts About Faith Hill And Tim McGraw's Marriage
Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have one of the most enduring marriages not just in country music, but possibly in Hollywood as a whole. The unfairly attractive couple have been married since 1996 and share three daughters, Gracie, Audrey, and Maggie. They don't just share a family, they also share a brand: They've toured together and even recorded an entire album of sugary duets, The Rest Of Our Life. That brand is lucrative, especially on the road. Billboard reports that Hill and McGraw's first joint tour in 2000, dubbed Soul2Soul, grossed $47.8 million; their second, Soul2Soul II from 2006 through 2007 grossed a whopping $141 million — making it the highest grossing country tour of all time; their 2017 Soul2Soul World Tour raked in $71.3 million.
In the early stages of Hill and McGraw's couplehood, Hill was the bigger star, Billboard noted, enjoying crossover pop success with "Breathe" and "The Way You Love Me" in the late 1990s. McGraw said during that period, while Hill did press, McGraw stayed home and watched the kids, joking he was just "Mr. Hill" at the time. Eventually, the tables turned and Hill's crossover success waned while McGraw became a country megastar — and when they first teamed up to work together, their careers soared higher than ever.
While they're blissfully in love, like any other couple, Hill and McGraw have plenty of idiosyncrasies. Behold, odd facts about the aesthetically blessed country crooners' marriage ... that will all still make the rest of us jealous.
Faith Hill was engaged to someone else when she and Tim McGraw first got together
Faith Hill was engaged to record producer Scott Hendricks when she hit it off with Tim McGraw in 1996 — and she doesn't regret it. "If someone is going to judge my character because I was engaged to somebody and then I left him for somebody else —' Oh, okay, now she's a slut and a bad person' — I can't control that," Hill told People in 1998. "But I wasn't about to let Tim slip through my hands." She noted to Good Housekeeping in 2004 of her engagement to Hendricks, "It obviously wasn't a rock-solid situation or it wouldn't have ended."
McGraw, meanwhile, admitted to Billboard that he had a girlfriend when he first met Hill in 1994 — and his girlfriend felt threatened by McGraw's chemistry with the blond bombshell. "For me, there was an intense physical attraction. I guess my girlfriend saw it in my eyes," he recalled. "She said, 'I don't want you around her.'" In a joint interview, McGraw and Hill both admitted to People that their romance was very "cat and mouse" on tour, and McGraw confessed he didn't think he had a shot with Hill at first until he kissed her for the first time, after which, he says, "Things started snowballing from there." He later revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show that he wooed Hill over with chicken and dumplings. If you're wondering, no, they actually couldn't be any cuter, but thanks for asking.
Their PDA is borderline absurd
Since the inception of their romance, one of Faith Hill and Tim McGraw's hallmarks has been their frequent public displays of affection and openness about their love lives with the public. Pictures speak a thousand words: Whether they're making goo-goo eyes at one another while performing together (especially "Let's Make Love") ...
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swapping spit onstage or on red carpets ...
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or getting grabby in full view of fans, McGraw and Hill really love to love each other. Hill confirmed as much to People when she commented on the fact that their tour bus was nicknamed "The Love Bus," admitting to the magazine, "A lot goes on in that bus."
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They've extended their sweetness to social media, often posting with and about one another on Instagram.
Music writer and McGraw's former publicist Holly Gleason put it plainly to People: "Watching Tim and Faith onstage is like two hours of total foreplay. It's sexy. It's adult." This performance of "I Need You" from their October 2017 Soul2Soul tour just drives it home.
Tim McGraw credits Faith Hill with saving his life
Not only did Tim McGraw get seriously ripped over the years, he also got sober in 2008. He admitted to Oprah's Master Class in 2014 (via The Huffington Post) that he needed "liquid courage" to perform live before he quit drinking. "I got to the point where I knew I drank too much. I knew that it was affecting my personal relationships, it was affecting my professional relationships, it was affecting my family," he recalled. "It was turning me into a person that I didn't want to be ... I was at a point where I could lose everything that I had in my life, first and foremost, my family. It [was] time to stop. And I stopped."
McGraw admitted to People that without Hill, "I'd be dead. Oh yeah, I would have partied too hard. I might have caught myself somewhere along the way and put the brakes on." He didn't go to rehab or participate in a 12-step program, he says: "I just stopped." He added, "Well, I had some help in deciding [to stop], but it was the right thing to do. You get to the point where you just want to be present for your kids, and you want them to be proud of you, and you start being really concerned about what their memories are. It's all about knowing when."
Faith Hill and Tim McGraw are NOT divorcing ... no matter what the press says
Despite Tim McGraw and Faith Hill being very demonstrative about how head over heels they are for one another, for whatever reason, the couple are often plagued by rumors of marital discord. It doesn't phase Hill and McGraw, but it irks them a bit. Hill told People in 2000, "I've had an affair with my makeup artist, a female; an affair with my hairstylist; my marriage is on the rocks; Maggie is not Tim's child. The naysayers. I don't need their approval. I have too much going on. If that's their entertainment, fine."
In 2013, the couple denied reports that they were divorcing. In 2018, a source told Closer Weekly that Hill was horrified after McGraw collapsed onstage for fear he may have been drinking again, but it turned out the crooner was just super-dehydrated — but that if there had ever been a time they may not have made it, it would have been then. Clearly, they did make it and everything was fine, but that hasn't stopped similar gossip headlines from continuing to pop up. Still, as it stands, the couple remain as blissfully happy as ever, haters be damned.