Garth Brooks used country greats Merle Haggard, George Jones to assist in his proposal to Trisha Yearwood
Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood got engaged in 2005
Garth Brooks went to great lengths to give Trisha Yearwood a proposal she would never forget.
In the country music star’s newly released book, “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home,” Brooks shared that his proposal in May 2005 included country greats Merle Haggard and George Jones at Buck Owens’ Crystal Palace in Bakersfield, California.
In the book, Brooks wrote that Owens decided to launch his nightclub with large bronze statues of men in country music. He called the night the “Legends in Bronze” event and statues included Haggard, Jones, George Strait, Bob Willis, Willie Cash and Owens himself.
Merle Haggard and George Jones assisted in Garth Brooks’ proposal to Trisha Yearwood. (Getty Images)
Brooks was very involved with the process of creating his statue, and Bill Rains, the artist behind the statue, made it clear that once it was finished, Brooks’ statue would stand “for hundreds of years” and not able to be changed. After Brooks was informed about the finality of the statue, he asked Rains, “Can you put a wedding ring on it?”
Rains gave the country music star a strange look and Brooks replied, “Because I have a love that’s going to do the same thing.”
“And the woman I will love for hundreds and hundreds of years was going to be my wife… She was also going to marry three little girls.”
Brooks detailed in his book that leading up to the proposal, Yearwood was in Cincinnati for work, which gave him the opportunity to fly down to Georgia and pick up her parents.
“I have Jack and Gwen all to myself on a plane, and I ask them for their daughter’s hand in marriage. This was in the spring of 2005, and I get their permission. And now I have to ask the three daughters,” Brooks wrote.
Yearwood mentioned at this point in the book that she would’ve “loved” to say she knew her now-husband was up to something, but she “had no clue.”
Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks became engaged in 2005. (Roy Rochlin/WireImage)
Now it was time for Brooks to ask his three daughters, Taylor, August and Allie, for their permission to marry Yearwood. Brooks shares his kids with his first wife, Sandy Mahl. They were married from 1986 until they divorced in 2001.
“I tell the girls to get dressed up for dinner. ‘What are we going to dinner for, Dad?’ I said, ‘We’ll go out tonight and I’ll tell you.’ So, they’re ten, eight and six years old at this point. We’re eating dinner, and we started talking about the future,” Brooks wrote. “And August or somebody said, ‘Dad, are you getting around to ask us about you marrying Trisha?’ And I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ And they were all fine.”
“I said, ‘But this conversation goes deeper than that. She doesn’t have children, so if something happens to me, you have to take care of her. So, you three and Trisha are going to have to get married, as well. You’ll exchange rings, vows, everything.'”
Garth Brooks was married to his first wife, Sandy Mahl, from 1986 to 2001. (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
Brooks wrote that this conversation with his three young daughters made him very emotional.
“Then, Allie, at six years old, puts down her fork, looks at me, pats me on the arm, and says, ‘We got your back, bra strap.’ That was it. ‘We got your back, bra strap.’ Conversation over,” Brooks wrote.
Brooks wrote that he also asked for his ex-wife’s blessing before the big proposal.
“If Sandy would’ve said no, then that would’ve affected a lot of things. The brakes would’ve came on because we’d have to love together as a family,” he said. Thankfully for Yearwood and Brooks, Sandy did not have any issue with the two getting married. In fact, she thought it was the “right move for our family.”
Garth Brooks asked for his daughters’ and his ex-wife’s approval before proposing to Yearwood. (Suzanne Cordeiro)
Brooks’ friend, Fred Reiser, was the mastermind behind the entire proposal. Reiser made a deal with Haggard that if he attended the event, he could close the show and Brooks booked a private plane for Jones.
“When they unveiled the statue, I took Miss Yearwood’s hand. They’ve already unveiled Haggard, Jones, Strait… I mean this is pretty fricking cool. And I look at Trisha and point to that ring, and it was like everyone was there, but nobody was there but us.
“And the first thing she did was grab her face and start shaking her head from side to side, and I thought, ‘Oh s–t, did I misread this one?’” Brooks wrote.
Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary next year. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
Yearwood wrote, “I know it must have scared him to death, but my first reaction was, ‘No! This can’t be happening in front of all these people! But yes! Yes! Yes!'”
At the end of the night, Brooks wrote that it all “worked out really well.”
The couple tied the knot in Oklahoma a few months later and Brooks’ father was the best man at his wedding.
“And the woman I will love for hundreds and hundreds of years was going to be my wife… She was also going to marry three little girls,” Brooks concluded.
Since tying the knot, Brooks and Yearwood have dealt with controversy.
In October, the country music star was accused of sexually assaulting “Jane Roe” in 2019 during a work trip, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. Per the documents filed by “Jane Roe,” the woman was first hired in 1999 to do the makeup and hairstyling for Brooks’ wife, Yearwood. She began working for Brooks doing makeup and hair in 2017, a couple of years before the alleged events took place.
Brooks has denied the allegations and amended his complaint against “Jane Roe” in an Oct. 8 filing obtained by Fox News Digital. The “Much Too Young” singer accused the woman, who he named in the filing, of attempted extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Brooks’ “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home” was released on Friday.
