The Tragic Truth About Vince Gill's Wife Amy Grant
Powerhouse couple Vince Gill and Amy Grant have had their fair share of ups and downs throughout their marriage. In fact, Grant has had a series of health-related challenges within the last three years alone and their marriage came out even stronger. The gospel singer managed to look at the lighter side of things when she spoke to Billboard in March, calling herself a "classic." She said, "I feel like an old car that got taken to the shop banged up and they've put in a new engine and a great paint job." And Grant's not complaining, adding "there were so many hidden gifts" and pointing out how things worked out for the best because she was under medical care at a pivotal time.
According to Grant, she's found a new appreciation for her health after a series of medical issues. In May, she told USA Today that she's found a new lease on life now that she's touring again. "Oh my goodness, I have enjoyed being back on the road so much... Being sick made me realize how much I count on feeling good most of the time. I don't know if it's a post-COVID thing, too, but I find the longer you enjoy something — either music or a sporting event or a walk in the woods — with time, that level of appreciation to still get to do those things increases."
Amy Grant had open-heart surgery
In late 2019, Amy Grant accompanied her husband, Vince Gill, to his cardiologist for a routine checkup. The doctor encouraged her to do some tests after learning she had been struggling with an irregular heartbeat for a decade. "I've had a harder time singing in the last five years ... everything kind of tightening up as I was trying to sing. I remember a couple times telling Vince, 'I feel like I'm suffocating.' It's the weirdest thing, I'm breathing as deep as I can, but in my mind none of that had to do with my heart," she told "Good Morning America." The test showed that Grant had a congenital partial anomalous pulmonary venous return. So, she had open-heart surgery to repair the birth defect in 2020.
Grant has discussed the role her faith played in her medical recovery journey. She told CBN, "Seeing the value in hard times matters... You don't know what's ahead and that is one of the great things about getting older in a framework of faith. Faith is the one thing that stands the test of time." Grant's assessment seems pretty accurate, especially because the "El Shaddai" singer again appeared on GMA in 2021, and was feeling positive about the future. "I feel fantastic. I just have this feeling that this is going to be the best year yet," she told co-host Robin Roberts. Well, nobody ever claimed fortune-telling was in Grant's skill set.
Amy Grant experienced memory loss after her bike accident
Amy Grant had a bike accident in late July 2022. Grant was riding her bicycle when she hit a pothole and received medical treatment. Luckily, the gospel singer had been wearing protective headgear at the time of the accident and was only kept in the hospital overnight. However, Grant's injuries were more serious than they initially believed and her doctors recommended she take some more time to recover.
"Amy is getting stronger every day. Just as she did after her heart surgery, we are amazed at how fast she heals. However, although she is doing much better, we have made the difficult decision to postpone her fall tour so she can concentrate on her recovery and rebuild her stamina," an Instagram press release stated.
Six months after her accident, Amy Grant explained to E! News that she struggled with memory loss and was using a teleprompter to help her with the lyrics while she performed. "My memory is still coming back, and the stamina, they say 12-18 months after an injury like that," she said at the start of 2023. Grant also told Billboard how the accident has affected her physically. "It's still hard for me to balance if I have my eyes closed, [which is] typical for a head injury. But if nothing else changed, I would be fine ... I feel like my mind has never felt so vibrant and active during a show," she stated.
Vince Gill supported Amy Grant through throat surgery
The trio of health crises culminated in January when Amy Grant had a cyst removed from her throat. In an interview with Today, she shared that she had been working with a vocal coach after her accident when the coach noticed a prominent bulge on her throat. Only when Grant had it checked out did she discover it was a thyroglossal duct cyst, a condition with which she had been born. Since the cyst was growing larger, it could potentially impede her ability to sing.
Grant revealed that had she not had the bike accident, she still might've been ignorant of the quail egg-sized cyst's existence. The singer told USA Today, "The trauma of the bike accident made it grow, or I never would have known I had it." Grant considers the chain of events to have been fortunate because it gave her a new lease on her career. Per Billboard, she stated, "There were so many hidden gifts... it was like somebody gave me my voice back."
Grant told People that her husband, the "My Kind of Woman" singer Vince Gill, supported her through every medical challenge. When Grant was feeling particularly low, Gill encouraged her. "And he said, 'Things happen to people every day, and you just have to take one day at a time, and we're here, and I love you.' And that just kind of made every day of the journey okay." Grant shared.