“What’s in a name?”
According to Garth Brooks, not everything.
The “Ain’t Going Down” singer recently shared that last year he declined a proposal from his wife, Trisha Yearwood, to change her last name to his.
Brooks shared that Yearwood — an acclaimed country singer and cookbook author — made the gesture as a gift while celebrating their anniversary. The anecdote was shared at a June 15 press conference in Nashville, Tennessee, where the singer announced the launch of a new station on his SEVENS Radio Network with TuneIn Radio.
“(Yearwood) was sweet enough for our anniversary last year to have the documents where her official last name was Brooks,” he explained before adding, “I declined it.”
“Jack Yearwood had two daughters,” he said in reference to his wife’s father. “That Yearwood name is Trisha. I’d be fine changing my name to Yearwood. Tradition doesn’t count here. What counts is when you have two celebrities, don’t have one swallow the other.”
The story came about after a reporter at the conference asked Brooks about his wife’s level of involvement in his new station.
After sharing Yearwood's proposal, Brooks shared that he hopes to launch a women-centric station called BABE, wherein his wife would have more involvement.
“It’s the bad a-- b----es of entertainment,” he said of the concept. “I’d love to see her heavily involved in that channel.”
In 2021, Yearwood spoke about her relationship with Brooks to SheKnows.
“We aren’t like a magical couple. We have our days, right? But we are best friends,” she said at the time. “I think the groundwork was laid by being friends for such a long time before we were a couple.”
Yearwood and Brooks met in 1987 when they were recording a demo track together. They married in 2005.
During the interview, Yearwood also spoke about being a “bonus parent” to Brooks’ three daughters, Taylor, 30, August, 29 and Allie, 26.
“It was a gift that I received from Garth and the girls of having them in a life that I didn’t know I was missing,” she said. “I can’t imagine my life without them.”
Brooks shares his children with his previous wife, Sandy Mahl.
