Thomas Rhett and his wife, Lauren Akins, are the proud parents of three daughters: 4-year-old Willa Gray, 2-year-old Ada James, and 2-month-old Lennon Love. The couple adopted Willa from Uganda only a few months before Ada James was born, and reveal adoption was never part of their concrete plan, until Lauren laid eyes on Willa.
“I’d always talked about adopting my whole life,” Lauren revealed on The Kelly Clarkson Show. “My mom is actually adopted. I just thought it was really cool. And we had talked about it off and on, but it wasn’t something that we’d sat down and had a full-on adoption conversation.”
They may have never had the adoption conversation, but they were still soon were making plans to bring Willa home, all while thousands of miles apart.
“I was in Uganda in 2016, and I had a picture of one of the babies there, and I had shared it on social media,” Lauren recalled. “And when I finally got to FaceTime [Thomas] that night, I was telling him her story, ‘Babe, we know so many people who are trying to adopt right now, and this little girl needs a forever home.’”
It was Thomas who suggested they make the child part of their family, while he was on the road.
“When I talked to [Lauren] on the phone that night and she said that we need to find her a home,” Thomas recalled. “It was after a concert, and I was going to bed, and I was like, ‘Well, bring her home.’ And I don’t fully remember even saying it,” he said. “It was such a spiritual thing for me that it just came out of my body. And literally two weeks after, we were having home assessments and talking to adoption agencies.”
Lauren didn’t need any convincing, since Willa captured her heart from the moment they met.
“I was so moved,” Lauren recalled of their first interaction. “The second I touched her, it was electric. I was like, ‘Oh, this little girl has just taken my heart.’ And I was like, ‘Honey, we’ve got to find her her forever home. Like, I know that’s why I’m here — to get this girl to her home.’”
Thomas might be an award-winning singer and songwriter, but it’s his role as a father that guides many of his decisions.
“hen I’m writing a song and there’s a line that doesn’t fully represent my ethics or my morals, then it [isn’t] gonna be in the song,” Thomas previously stated. “I just want to make sure that when my kids do hear my songs there’s nothing that they can go to school and say, ‘Well my dad said do that. You know what I’m saying? That would destroy me, I think.”
Thomas’ current single is “Be a Light.” A portion of the proceeds from the song, which features Reba McEntire, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum’s Hillary Scott and Chris Tomlin, benefits the MusiCares COVID-19 Relief Fund. Download or stream the song by visiting his website.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The GreenRoom
