Reba McEntire Explains Her ’Inseparable’ Romance With Rex Linn: ’I’m Truly Committed to Rex’
Reba McEntire is reminiscing about the day nearly four years ago when her romance with boyfriend Rex Linn began.
McEntire, 69, and Linn, 67, initially met on the set of Kenny Rogers’ 1991 film, The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw. They reunited three decades later in 2020 when they worked together on Young Sheldon, and their chemistry was electric.
"It was just like a magnet," The Voice coach told E! News in an interview published on Wednesday, April 9. Linn appears in the series as Principal Tom Petersen, and he met McEntire when she began a recurring role as June that year. After the initial spark, she remembered that they were apart for five months.
"We didn't get to see each other from January ‘til June 16, but we created an intimacy by texting and talking over the telephone that we wouldn't have gotten if we'd have been together all of that time,” McEntire recalled, adding that they’ve been “pretty much inseparable” since that reunion.
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The three-time Grammy winner said that not seeing each other in person for several months was actually a blessing that allowed them to not focus solely on physical attraction.
"You know the ins and outs of their personality and their faults,” she said. “You love them for the way they are, instead of it being a total attraction and sizing them up because of appearance."
McEntire also told E! that Linn has a special quality that she loves: “He makes me laugh.”
When the couple first met in 1991, McEntire was married to her second husband, Narvel Blackstock. After 26 years of marriage, they divorced in 2015. They share one son, Shelby, 34. McEntire was previously married to Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987.
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After two divorces, McEntire says she is open to marrying Linn.
"I'm truly committed to Rex," she explained. "So if that's something he feels totally strong about, that's fine with me. He's never been married before. So if he wants to experience that, I'm OK with that."
The county music legend previously explained that Linn was the key to her coping with the most traumatic time in her life, when her mother, Jacqueline McEntire, died in 2020 after a battle with cancer.
“When you have somebody to share the grief with, when you have somebody to share the fun (and) the sad times, it’s always so much better,” McEntire said on the Today show in October 2023. “Rex is a very uplifting, positive man, and I love him with all my heart.”
