Things About Luke Bryan's Marriage You Didn't Know
Luke Bryan has had his wife Caroline by his side for as long as the country music mega-star has been in the public eye. The college sweethearts walk the red carpet hand-in-hand, co-star in Bryan's music videos on occasion and coordinate their Halloween costumes, Christmas-themed sweaters and PJs. Oh, to be in love (and loaded). If you can't get enough of Mr. and Mrs. Bryan, these facts about their marriage are for you. After all, there are some things about Luke Bryan's marriage you probably didn't know. After all, being married to a country star isn't always as easy as it seems.
Caroline likes ordering Bryan raunchy birthday cakes
Birthdays in the Bryan household can get a little crude. The country singer told Taste of Country's radio show that his wife "gets really, really creative with birthday cakes.... Half the time they're not anything I can post." Just how creative are we talking? For Luke Bryan's 40th birthday, Caroline ordered a Guinness chocolate cake that had an image of Bryan popping out of it, only his face was photoshopped onto a shirtless chippendales dancer.
But that was nothing compared to the vulgar toilet cake Caroline ordered for Bryan's 39th birthday. "Right away [Caroline] told me they have a really hilarious sense of humor," Jenna Siebert, co-owner of The Sweet Divine in St. Louis, told Feast, "and she said, 'I'm kinda thinking of a cake that has poop in it that says 'Holy s***, you're getting old.'" And those are just the cakes that have been made public.
Bryan doesn't think couple's time apart was a bad thing
Luke Bryan and Caroline began dating after they met at a bar called Dingus Magee's in Statesboro, Georgia when they were students at Georgia Southern University (see, some celebs meet their significant other in bars, too). They dated on-and-off for two and a half years before going their separate ways for a lengthy five-and-a-half years. The reason for the break-up?
Bryan told the Huffington Post that Caroline "was three years younger than me in college. I was about done with school when we met. So I kinda went off and did my thing in Nashville and she finished up her college experience and it kinda allowed us to both go get our feet a little firmer on the ground." They eventually reconnected when Bryan performed at a bar in Statesboro, and they tied the knot in 2006.
Caroline doesn't share Bryan's passion for hunting and fishing
If you've heard Luke Bryan's song "Huntin', Fishin' and Lovin' Every Day," you know he sings about his love for — you guessed it — hunting, fishing, and the significant other who occasionally joins him on his outdoors adventures. But if you think that means Caroline is a hunting enthusiast, you would be incorrect. "I'm an outdoors person, but I'm not a hunter," she told the now-defunct Country Weekly (via Nash Country Daily). "I'm not going to kill anything. I can't."
She isn't too big on taxidermy either. Interior designer Chad James told Nashville Lifestyles that Caroline didn't want him including any hunting trophies when decorating the couple's home, though she eventually came around on a few subtle ideas.
Lucky for Bryan, he's been able to pass on his love of hunting and fishing to his sons and the nephew he's raising. Caroline posted video of son Bo hunting on Instagram (or at least trying to) with the caption "Took Bo hunting this evening... had little idea what I was doing.... Evidently I am loud and annoying."
Younger son Tate wasn't exactly thrilled with his mom either when they went hunting on a separate trip. "I did it again," Caroline wrote on Instagram. "Another kid mad at me during a hunting trip. Poor Tate wanted me to paint his face for hunting.... He didn't realize I put a cat nose and whiskers on him until we took a selfie.... He wouldn't talk or look at me for a few hours."
Bryan recorded a song for Caroline but didn't write it
Much was made about Luke Bryan's song "To the Moon and Back," which he dedicated to his wife. He told Entertainment Tonight that he had butterflies the first time he played it for Caroline because "this was my attempt at, through song, telling her how much she means to me." What many stories failed to mention is that Bryan didn't actually write it.
Hillary Lindsey, Tony Lane, and Tom Douglas are the songwriters behind the ballad, which includes the lyrics "Through the good and the ugly/The blue and the black/To the ends of the Earth/To the moon and back."
Bryan hasn't taken credit for writing it — he has only said he had Caroline in mind when he recorded the song. "The second I heard it I told myself, 'Well, this is a really manly, masculine way to tell your wife and tell people you love them,'" Bryan told Radio.com (via Country Fancast).
Caroline was initially unimpressed with Bryan's famous butt
Luke Bryan's butt is a force of its own, but he isn't letting the fame get to his head, at least any more than other celebs. The butt with its own Twitter account (18,000 followers!) and meet-and-greet rule (no touching) apparently wasn't always such a hit.
"My wife and I laugh about it, because she always thought I had a flat [rear end] until I started working out," Bryan admitted to Parade. Maybe his butt grew on Caroline after he reportedly had her initials tattooed on it. Or not.
For the record, Bryan said on Sirius XM's The Jenny McCarthy Show that he doesn't think he has much of a butt, and credited his tight jeans for creating the illusion.
Caroline dealt with jealous women before Bryan was famous
The female adoration didn't just start when Luke Bryan's career took off. Caroline said Bryan was popular with the ladies in college and dating him came with its share of scrutiny — especially since she was younger. "I got hated on some because he was a big popular guy on campus and here comes a little freshman," Caroline told Country Weekly (via Nash Country Daily). "A lot of girls didn't take to me too much."
Now that Bryan is a bonafide superstar and sex symbol (People named him the Sexiest Man in Country in 2014), there are countless women who would like to get their hands on him. Caroline said she doesn't mind, claiming it comes with the territory. "He's a beautiful man and girls are going to see that, and that's just how it is," Caroline told People. "It's honestly never bothered me."
The couple's go-to song isn't a country tune
The love interest in Luke Bryan's song "Play it Again" lights up every time her song comes on and says "Oh my God, this is my song," which is something many women can relate to — including Caroline. "Our go-to song all throughout college was an old Lenny Kravitz song called ['Can't Get You Out of My Mind']," Bryan revealed to Country HitMakers. "That's kind of like Caroline's 'Oh my God....'"
Bryan also told People that the soft rock tune has always been "our big make-out song."
Bryan is the stereotypical messy husband
As if it isn't hard enough picking up after two kids and a teenager, Caroline has said she also has her hands full with the messes that her husband makes. Maybe it's all the muddy hunting equipment? Caroline told Country Weekly (via Taste of Country), "With three boys in my house, I'm constantly on-the-go and cleaning... Luke being the messiest one." Bryan doesn't deny his messy ways. He admitted to Us Weekly that "The inside — and outside — of my Chevy truck is always messy."
Caroline took her gripe to Instagram, where she sarcastically poked fun at Luke's attempt to make a bed with what appears to be eight pillows: "I asked Luke to make the bed......this happened. Nice job Love Bug." In Bryan's defense, eight pillows?
Caroline has no interest in joining Bryan in the music biz
Luke Bryan's marriage to Caroline is one that could perhaps survive the work dynamic as well. Should Caroline want to pursue a career in the music industry, it's safe to assume she wouldn't have a hard time getting her foot in the door. But from the sound of things, she's simply not interested. "I have no aspirations for anything else in the industry," she told Country Weekly (via Taste of Country). "My main focus are my kids and seeing Luke as much as possible. Also, I really have no talent anyway."
Self-deprecation aside, Caroline has appeared in Bryan's music videos, beginning with "Crash My Party," though it sounds like she didn't immediately jump at the opportunity. "I sat down with Caroline. I was like, 'Do you want to be in the video?'" Bryan said. "She's like, 'If you want me to be in the video.' We talked about the positives and negatives of her being in it. We kinda got to the point where I was like, 'I ain't gonna overthink it, you know. Come in the video. It'll be fun. It'll be a cool moment.'"
Bryan is by no means a marriage guru
Because he's been married for over a decade and has outlasted other high-profile country music relationships, Luke Bryan is constantly fielding questions about the keys to a successful marriage. But as Bryan himself has admitted, he doesn't have all the answers.
"My problem is when you're all up in the fight, the argument, I should just hang up," Bryan said in an interview with San Diego's 103.7 KSON. "But I keep wanting to make it better and that makes it worse. My producer Jeff Stevens... was in my truck with me one day and me and Caroline were all up in the middle of one of those stupid arguments that you get into and Jeff was in the passenger seat going 'Hang up. Just hang up. You're an idiot.'"
Bryan was apparently just as oblivious about pal Jason Aldean's first marriage blunders. After Aldean was photographed cheating on his wife with "American Idol" alum Brittany Kerr in 2012, Bryan told Phoenix's 102.5 KNIX "I think Jason handled it the best way he could, apologizing, and I think it's pretty clear that it was an alcohol-related situation much more than any other type of situation." As has been well-documented, Aldean got divorced the next year, and married to Kerr in 2015.