Thomas Rhett isn’t afraid to take a backseat to his wife, Lauren Akins. While Rhett might currently be the more well-known of the two, with his successful music career, it’s his wife who he says is the real rock star in the family.
“I’m just honestly waiting for my wife to become more famous than I am, and then I’m just gonna stop,” Rhett quips to BMLG. “I’m just gonna let her do everything. It’s been pretty hilarious to watch how my fans have just gravitated toward my wife so much, and it’s been really cool because my wife is obviously so involved in charitable work and starting a new organization called Love One International, and doing a bunch of work in Haiti and Uganda. I just become more proud of my wife every single day.”
Akins is also giving birth to the couple’s fourth child, a girl, later this year. Although the couple has experienced many highs and lows, and long absences when Rhett is on the road, both remain committed to their marriage, regardless of their present circumstances.
“It was even in our wedding vows. We said, ‘Divorce is not an option,’” Rhett previously said. “Because marriage is fricking hard. No matter what you do for a living, when you start to add kids into the equation, things just change. You start to love each other differently because now you have, for us, three little babies to take care of. So, making time for each other, I think, was a struggle that we dealt with, just from going, ‘Well, I need to watch the baby, you need to watch both girls. But we were supposed to have date night tonight. Well, let’s just push it until next week.’”
Rhett and Akins have also been outspoken advocates of attending marital therapy, which they began when their relationship hit an unexpected impasse.
“When Lauren was in Uganda … I’m back in Nashville, and I’m playing shows,” Rhett previously recalled. “I remember there was one night where she called me, and it was the second night of our Nashville dates. Literally, every one of our best friends — Lauren’s friends, my friends — were all at the show. Lauren called me, because it was like 9:00 in the morning in Uganda. All my friends were on the bus, we’re all hanging out, having a good time. She hears all of her friends in the background.
“Meanwhile, Lauren is seven months pregnant, throwing up in a bathroom in Uganda,” he continued. “At that moment, that’s when Lauren was like, ‘We are living two complete separate lives right now.’ That was a really humbling experience for me, just kind of knowing what she was dealing with over there, the sense of aloneness, while I’m kind of living life as usual, back in the States. That part was really hard for us, for sure, kind of getting over that, and going through some therapy.”
Rhett is currently on his Center Point Road Tour. Find dates at ThomasRhett.com.
