Garth Brooks refers to the years raising his children out of the spotlight in Oklahoma as “life at its best,” but it wasn’t without challenges.
In the country music star’s recently released book, “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home,” Brooks recalled being the most “lost” he has ever been when he uprooted his entire life and returned to the place where he grew up to ‘learn’ how to be a father.
A little backstory: Brooks and his first wife, Sandy Mahl, were married from 1986 until they officially divorced in 2001. The former couple has three daughters: Taylor, August and Allie.
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Garth Brooks retired from music in 2000 to raise his three daughters in Oklahoma. (Getty Images)
On October 26, 2000, Brooks decided to announce his retirement from the music world. He soon moved back to Oklahoma to raise his children.
Storme Warren, television and radio broadcaster for Brooks’ SEVENS Network, was there when Brooks announced his retirement during an emotional news conference.
Garth Brooks and his first wife, Sandy Mahl, were married from 1986 to 2001. (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
“It was a big deal, and it was moving, and we all sat there and said, ‘He just announced his retirement after ten years at the top, ten years of being the biggest superstar in the world,'” Warren said in Brooks’ book.
Dave Gant, a member of Brooks’ band, couldn’t believe the star was leaving his career.
“It was a big deal, and it was moving, and we all sat there and said, ‘He just announced his retirement after ten years at the top, ten years of being the biggest superstar in the world.'”
“How could he leave that career behind and never want to do it again? But Mark Greenwood, our bassist, kept saying, ‘No, I don’t think we’re ever going back. I think he’s done.'” Gant shared .
Brooks wrote, “So I announced my retirement and headed to Oklahoma. There you’re going to learn to be a father, watch your marriage end, and be as lost as you’ve ever been. How do you do that? Well, how do you that?” , I certainly didn’t know – I had to go through it to figure out how to do it.
Allie Colleen Brooks and Sandy Mahl in 2017. (Rick Diamond/Getty Images)
Garth Brooks and Sandy Mahl raised their three daughters separately in Oklahoma. (Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
He continued, “More than anything at that moment, I wanted to be a good father, just a tenth of what my own father was. My work before that was quite simple.” Honey, I’d love to help with the kids,’ but I have to go on a tour where people are going to scream my name, and everyone is going to try to make me happy.”
‘My God, it was my job, but I couldn’t blame myself for not being a real father anymore. Thanks to God and people, we were more than financially secure, and these children needed their own lives. asking them to come into this world, I asked them to come into this world.”
The “Friends in Low Places” singer admitted, “My family made a lot of sacrifices so I could pursue my dream. Now it was my turn to make some. And as I discovered over time, it wasn’t a sacrifice. not at all. It was another gift. But before the gifts came through, I had to let go of some things. I entered a kind of darkness that I had never known before.
Garth Brooks used his own father as inspiration for the kind of father he wanted to be. (Terry Wyatt/Getty Images for Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum)
Throughout Brooks’ book, the country music star took a trip down memory lane, back to the fourteen years he spent in Oklahoma.
“When we first arrived in Oklahoma, we stayed with Sandy’s parents. These were wonderful people, people I love. They were the only ones I really knew there,” Brooks wrote, referring to his first wife’s parents.
‘Sandy and I wanted to make one last attempt to save our marriage. Because come on, you were married with your family there and in the presence of God, so you keep thinking that it should just work out. Just one last time,” he wrote.
Although the former couple couldn’t make things work, they remained close.
Garth Brooks was at the peak of his career when he retired. Here he is photographed in 1989. (Beth Gwinn/Getty Images)
‘What would never end, of course, was the family. And what I learned was that the person you divorce is the person you need as your best friend in the process of ending a marriage. That’s the hardest time, but it’s what your family needs most. And Sandy did that, for the situation, for the girls and for me,” Brooks continued.
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In his book, Brooks describes his divorce from Mahl as the “most difficult time” in his life. “And I hope it remains the hardest. I hope I never experience anything worse than that era. That hurt,” he wrote.
The “hardest” time in Garth Brooks’ life was getting through his divorce. (Roy Rochlin/WireImage)
The former couple purchased a piece of land in Oklahoma and both lived separately on the property. Brooks lived in a 7,000-square-foot former bunkhouse for five years.
“Sandy and I started swapping the kids every day at 6 p.m. For fourteen years, we swapped the kids every day at 6 p.m. because we didn’t think it was fair that they would have to live without their mother or father,” Brooks wrote.
“So there I was, back in Oklahoma, where I grew up, settled down, and just getting ready for…I didn’t know what. I would start learning every other day at 6 p.m. And there would be a lot to happen.” of learning.”
Garth Brooks said it wasn’t a “sacrifice” to retire to raise his children. (Bob Koning/Redferns)
Later in the book, Brooks again spoke about his reason for stepping out of the spotlight for a while, writing, “A man will blame having to earn a living for the times he wasn’t there for his family . to justify why we’re gone all the time. When you’re on the road playing shows, reading your kids to sleep is definitely out of the question – that’s right in the middle of everything.
“But I’m telling you, reading to kids to sleep is the best part of parenting. I couldn’t do it from the road. I finally had to stand up and say I wouldn’t be a father who saw my kids one weekend out of the month , I just wouldn’t be, because my father wasn’t.
He continued, “All you had to do was say, ‘Hey, look, as much as I love making music, being older is a thousand times better. No offense to music.” Anyone who has ever been a parent knows that there is nothing better than that. I could live the rest of my life without music.’
Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks tied the knot in 2005. (Suzanne Cordeiro/AFP via Getty Images)
In 2005, singer Trisha Yearwood and Brooks tied the knot.
Bryan Kennedy, a songwriter and musician who has collaborated with Brooks in the past, noted in his book that “Trisha Yearwood was the difference” in the star’s life.
“He is the most genuine person I have met in entertainment, but he was in a new situation,” Kennedy wrote, referring to Brooks’ recent divorce and becoming a single father. “Trisha Yearwood was the difference in his life. He could always be himself with her. It would take a few years, but the best thing he ever did was married to Trisha.”
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Brooks said, “There was no manual for what I wanted to build. The big thing for me, the savior that was on the horizon for me would be Trisha, because she comes in, and these girls aren’t just about a companion who is not their mother or father, but they will have an example living among them.”
Garth Brooks praised Trisha Yearwood for being an example to his daughters in his recently released book. (Charles Sykes/Invision/AP)
“How to treat people, how to be yourself, how to be independent. The Little Yellow House (that’s what he called the house where he and his children, and later Yearwood, lived for a while in Oklahoma) would change as she walked We were all going to change when she walked into that house,” he concluded.
Brooks and Yearwood have faced controversy this year.
In October, the country star was accused of sexually assaulting “Jane Roe” in 2019 during a business trip, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. According to the documents filed by ‘Jane Roe’, the woman was first hired in 1999 to do the makeup and hair styling for Brooks’ wife, Yearwood. She started working for Brooks in makeup and hair in 2017, a few years before the alleged events took place.
Garth Brooks was accused in October of sexual assault by “Jane Roe,” a woman who was hired as his wife’s hair and makeup artist in 2019. (Suzanne Cordeiro)
Brooks, 62, has denied the allegations and amended his complaint against “Jane Roe” in an Oct. 8 filing obtained by Fox News Digital. The “Much Too Young” singer accused the woman, whom he named in the filing, of attempted extortion, defamation, false light, invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
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Brooks’ “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home” was released Friday.
Fox News Digital’s Emily Trainham contributed to this report.
