This Is Why Randy Travis Never Had Children

Randy Travis wrote his name in music history by taking country back to its roots. As All Music noted, Travis became a leading voice in the New Traditionalist movement that sought to move away from the Urban Cowboy style dominant in the '80s. His efforts were nothing short of successful. Travis has earned 16 Grammy Awards nominations, seven of which he won. Travis didn't limit his talents to music, as he added a pretty serious acting career to his repertoire, as noted on the Randy Travis website. Travis appeared in a variety of films and TV series, sharing the screen with Matt Damon and Claire Danes in "The Rainmaker," with Patrick Swayze in "Black Dog," and starring as the "cute" guy in "Sabrina The Teenage Witch."

Travis began to explore his musical talents as a young kid, much before he adopted his stage name (his last name is Traywick), according to Experience Nicola Valley. Encouraged by his father, the North Carolina native was already playing the guitar by the time he was 8, along with his brother Ricky, who was two years older, the website detailed. "My dad was always a big country music fan, so we grew up listening to a lot of the old stuff. Hank Williams and Patsy Cline were probably his favorites," Ricky told Take Country Back. While Travis grew up in a big family that shaped him in many ways, he himself had no children and kept his family quite small. Read on to learn why.

One among six children who grew up on a turkey farm in rural North Carolina, Randy Travis craved having a big family of his own. But that was not in the cards for him, he and his wife, Mary Travis, told Taste of Country in 2020. Now in his 60s, Randy never had any children. The main reason was the 16-year age difference between Randy and his first wife, Elizabeth "Lib" Hatcher, who was also his manager, Mary told the publication. "He wanted children, and I think his relationship with Lib, who was so much older than him and they were not able to, is what he explained to me," she explained. "Children are very special to Randy and he's always had a very — you know, some people are magnetic toward children and animals," Mary said.

Per the North Carolina History Project, Randy met Hatcher in 1975, when he was a teenager and she was in her 30s, after he won a singing contest. At the time, Randy was a troublesome youth involved with drugs and alcohol, which led to several brushes with the law. Hatcher offered to become Randy's legal guardian to prevent him from being sentenced to prison, and he acquiesced. Randy and Hatcher entered into a professional relationship that turned the musician into a country star. The relationship eventually evolved into something more and the two tied the knot in 1991, when Hatcher was nearing her 50s, per The U.S. Sun. Unfortunately, their love did not last. 

After being involved both professionally and romantically for 35 years and married for 19, Randy Travis and Elizabeth "Lib" Hatcher acrimoniously ended the first relationship in 2010 and the latter in 2011. Since Hatcher was also Travis's manager, their divorce sparked a series of issues around their respective careers. As the Country Thang Daily reported, the former couple opted to continue to work together after splitting, but infighting quickly grew into a full-blown legal battle. Both Travis and Hatcher filed several lawsuits against each other in a back-and-forth that lasted years, the report detailed.

Travis accused his former manager of breach of contract and deliberately sabotaging his career following their split, according to ABC News. Hatcher, in turn, accused Travis of "intentional[ly] interfering" with her job, which led to "undermining the effectiveness of his career in the entertainment industry," according to TMZ. In 2012, ABC News put theirs at the top of a list of "nasty celebrity divorces." In a statement, Travis stood his ground, but regretted the path their divorce had taken. "It is unfortunate that it's come to this," he said, per Country Thang Daily.

For the former couple, love and business were intertwined from the onset. "In my 20s, I started really wanting to change. My wife had a big part to play in that," Travis said in an interview with Barnes and Noble (via The Boot). While sad, it is unsurprising that their divorce stained Travis and Hatcher's professional relationship.