Reba McEntire Met Her Boyfriend Thanks to Another Country Music Legend

From Oprah Magazine

After her headline-making divorce from ex-husband Navel Blackstock in 2015, Reba McEntire is once again in love.

The 64-year-old singer's new beau is retired oil geologist Anthony "Skeeter" Lasuzzo, who she met in a rather unlikely way. While vacationing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, they were introduced by a famous mutual friend, Brooks & Dunn singer Kix Brooks.

"[They said] we've got a friend who is a wildlife photographer, and he knows all the good places to go and he'll drive you around," McEntire told CountryLiving.com. "And so he did, and we started dating about a month or two after that."

In an interview with People, McEntire revealed that she returned to Jackson Hole two months later and that's when Lasuzzo asked her out on a date.

"I was there almost a week and we spent every day together," she said.

For McEntire, it was important that she and Lasuzzo get to know each other as friends first, which is why the serious relationship started "just gradually." She also told People that she was "not looking" and "not even interested" in finding love again.

In 2018, they eventually made their first red carpet appearance at the 2018 Grammys. Since, the couple have put their love for one another on full display.

"We're totally in love-absolutely! I wouldn't put up with somebody for two years if I wasn't in love with 'em!," she told People. "The old heart's still beating."

Now, the couple spends their time between McEntire's Nashville home and his homes in Jackson Hole and Pottsboro, Texas.

"We do a lot of walking," she said. "He lives right there on the lake [Texoma], got a beautiful home. And then when we go to Jackson Hole, we snowshoe and walk and get into nature."

His Texas home also happens to be a 90-minute drive away from where McEntire's family lives in Oklahoma, so they are always paying them visits.

"[We] go up and see my momma," she told People. "It's my backyard."

Just like McEntire, Lasuzzo is a parent and has four kids-Holli, Tyler, Kristi, and Blake, plus five grandchildren-from a previous marriage with his late wife, who died in 2013 after a seven-year battle with breast cancer.

McEntire and Blackstock together have 29-year-old son Shelby Blackstock. And if the Blackstock name sounds familiar, it's because Navel is actually Kelly Clarkson's former manager and father-in-law. It's through him that Clarkson met her husband and the father of her children, Brandon Blackson, one of Navel's three kids with his first wife, Elisa Gayle Ritter. Technically, this makes McEntire Clarkson's former mother-in-law and a prominent figure in the Blackstock family.

McEntire and Blackstock were together for 26 years before calling it quits in 2015-something that she actually didn't want to happen.

"The divorce was not my idea. I didn't want it in any shape, form or fashion," McEntire told CMT. "So, it was really hard to make the adjustment when someone's not happy. I just want everybody to be happy in their lives, because our lives are too short to be miserable. I just thought it was the best thing to take my marbles and go play somewhere else, is what daddy used to always say."

McEntire is currently gearing up to host the Academy of Country Music Awards for the 16th time (yes, you read that correctly), and, of course, Lasuzzo will be right by her side.

"We like to color coordinate a little bit to where we don't clash," she told People about their outfits for the awards show.

Prepare to see McEntire and her new guy front and center at the 2019 ACM Awards on Sunday, April 7 at 8 p.m. ET on CBS.

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