Toby Keith Gives Last Emotional Statement About His Wife
Toby Keith was a renowned country music star, and although you might know him best from his ground-breaking career he was just as passionate about philanthropy. Following a 2021 diagnosis of stomach cancer, he leaned on the support of his family to find the strength to keep going. Tragically, it was a fight he would lose: Keith passed away after a two-year battle, but his last thoughts concerned his loved ones, and his final dedication to his wife might just move you to tears.
Grandma started it all
Although he burst onto the music scene in 1993 the future country legend was a music star at heart long before that. In fact, the boy born Toby Keith Covel actually started playing guitar at the tender age of just eight years old!
Even from those early beginnings in his home state of Oklahoma, his music and family were intertwined. You see, Keith’s grandma had given him that first instrument, a kind gesture that doubtless meant the world to him.
Inspired by the greats
Keith began songwriting a little later: People magazine reported in a 2001 profile that he cut his metaphorical gums as a lyricist in his teens. He drew inspiration from some of the greats of the era.
In his youth Keith was into the Eagles and Willie Nelson, but initially he didn’t pursue a musical career. After his 1979 graduation he went to work in the oil fields, doing what he described as “typical roughneck stuff.”
Easy Money Band
Keith hadn’t given up on his music career; he still played Alabama country rock with his friends in a group called the Easy Money Band in bars at night. And it was via those performances that he met his future wife.
He fell head over heels during a chance encounter with a woman in a bar who also shared his career choice. Tricia Lucus — later Covel — was an oil company secretary, and Keith’s natural charisma drew her in.
Larger than life
In 2001 Covel told People magazine, “I was 19 and he was 20. He was just one of those larger-than-life guys, full of confidence.” Three years later in 1984 they tied the knot.
Keith didn’t just get a wife that day, though. He started his own family too, since Covel had a daughter called Shelley from a previous relationship. Following their marriage, Keith adopted her.
Hard times
It wasn’t all sunshine and roses, though. Hard times came along when, in Keith’s own words, the oil fields “went bust.” Yet it did give him the opportunity to change his career focus.
“I started concentrating on my music,” he said. Well, his biggest passion was his family, which got bigger in 1985 when Keith and Covel had another daughter together. They named her Krystal.
“Big things” around the corner
It must have been difficult to juggle family, money, and music. Keith acknowledged this himself, but he was just as confident as Covel described, and he was confident that big things were just around the corner.
Covel revealed how Keith would tell her, “Trish, one of these days, my time is coming. Hang in there.” And while she was patient, other people didn’t have the same levels of belief in Keith’s future success.
“Get a real job”
In 2021 Keith informed Country Weekly’s The Boot, “Dozens of people told Tricia, ‘You need to go tell your old man to get a real job.’” Keith was grateful for her continued faith, though.
Keith continued, “It took a strong-hearted and loving woman to say, ‘He’s good enough at music that I’ve got to let him try. And it’ll be a great shot for both of us if he can make it work.’”
“Should Have Been a Cowboy”
He was right, too; his band was gaining traction, and they started touring even more. For someone who was so focused on friends and family though, it’s ironic that Keith’s fame came from one of his solo hits. The song in question was 1993’s “Should Have Been a Cowboy.”
The debut single, which resonated with Keith’s longing to be part of the old West, echoed classics such as Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. It leapt out of the proverbial starting blocks and rocketed straight to number one in the U.S. Country charts.
Savoring success
By the time this first hit came along, Keith was older than a lot of first-time music stars today, but he told the San Diego Union Tribune in 2012 it had worked better that way, even though he’d had to wait a while.
He elaborated, “If I’d come out of the box with my first number-one hit at 21, instead of when I was 29, I probably wouldn’t have appreciated it, because I wasn’t mature enough then.”
Staying grounded
Even during his rise to fame, Keith always remained grounded in his family life, as Covel told People magazine back in 1991. “Most people think he is just the most romantic person on the planet,” she said.
Covel elaborated, “He has his moments of charm. It is nice to get a bouquet of flowers, but I’ve told him, ‘Save the money. Roses die in five to seven days. Buy me an outfit or take me to dinner.’”
Family man
Keith stayed as dedicated a family man as he had ever been, and this focus on home comforts bore fruit once more in 1997. You see, Covel fell pregnant again, this time with a boy.
They had their first son that year who they named Stelen, which lit another fire under Keith. But despite his continued good fortune when it came to his personal life, things were about to get rocky.
Record-label woes
You’d think that after getting a number one, Keith’s career would have been on a straight upwards trajectory. That wasn’t the case, though. Some resistance came in 1999 from Mercury, his record label at the time.
After Mercury had rejected his sixth album twice, Keith got a more positive response from DreamWorks, with the song “When Love Fades” as the title single. Unfortunately this track didn’t prove very popular with the public, and Keith has his suspicions why.
Too low-key?
Perhaps it had been because the song was so solemn? Keith instead suggested a different tactic and suggested that they should promote a more upbeat and rebellious song, “How Do You Like Me Now?!” as a single.
And if you’re thinking that the title was an overt jab at Mercury, then you’d be wrong! The song was actually about his high-school years and a girl who had rejected him. But did this gamble pay off?
“Fire my biggest missile”
According to a 2024 piece in The New York Times, Keith later recalled telling DreamWorks, “Man, you guys aren’t giving me a chance to fire my biggest missile.” And boy, did it go off with a bang!
“So they pulled the single in five days, put out ‘How Do You Like Me Now?!’ and my career exploded,” Keith said. It was his fourth country number one! All the same, as with many famous figures, as fate would have it controversy lay just around the corner.
September 11
In 2001 tragedy struck when terrorists attacked the World Trade Center. It affected countless lives, and as a dedicated family man the horror of that day that had been inflicted on thousands of fellow citizens provoked a very personal reaction in Keith.
So he did what came naturally to musicians such as himself: he wrote a song about it. The terror attacks gave birth to the famous — and in some quarters, infamous — track “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”
Conservative image
Now, bearing in mind that Keith already had something of a conservative cowboy image, his new single only served to cement this reputation. The song was basically an anger-fueled battlecry.
Keith had only intended to play the song on his United Service Organizations (USO) tours, but the song gained a wider audience than he’d expected. During a trip to the Pentagon, General James L. Jones convinced the singer it could make a difference winning hearts and minds.
Bitten by the patriot bug
Keith was bitten by the patriot bug, and released two further songs along the same theme: “American Soldier” and “The Taliban Song.” But what did other artists think of them?
Well, for their part the Dixie Chicks — whom you might know now as The Chicks — were less than impressed. In a 2002 Los Angeles Daily News interview, band singer Natalie Maines spoke out against Keith’s stance.
“I hate it”
Maines said, “Don't get me started. I hate it. It’s ignorant, and it makes country music sound ignorant. It targets an entire culture, and not just the bad people who did bad things.”
“You've got to have some tact,” she continued. “Anybody can write, ‘We’ll put a boot in your ass.’ But a lot of people agree with it.” At the time, Keith chose not to respond to this very public criticism from some of his peers.
The furor grows
The groundswell of criticism and counter-claim escalated over the following months and years, leading to Keith eventually coming clean to CMT.com in 2006. He said, “I’m embarrassed about the way I let myself get sucked into all of that.”
Actually, as is often the way, the situation had been more complicated than it seemed. It all went back to Keith’s familial bonds. In this particular instance the relevant issue was his father, who was a war veteran.
Tribute
According to a 2002 interview with Top 40 Charts, Keith said “The Angry American” hadn’t only been a response to 9/11, but it had also been intended as a tribute to his late father, which fueled his later reaction to comments such as those voiced by Maines.
Keith said his father had served in the Vietnam War. “That’s why I’m so defensive when somebody jumps on that song, you know,” he said of “The Angry American.” He added, “You get on that and you just turn into a commie heathen with me.”
Respect for veterans
The military had played a large part in Keith’s family life; his father had even lost sight in one eye on his tour of duty. In 2009 the country singer told People magazine, “My father always taught us to respect veterans.”
“My dad and I used to talk about seeing places Americans fought, like Germany and France.” Keith said of the USO tours. He added, “He passed away before we did, so I feel he’s with me when I do this.”
“Who cares?”
All the same, in 2012 Keith was adamant that the whole “feud” between himself and Maines had simply been a storm in a teacup. At least, that’s what he told the San Diego Union Tribune. He said, “My deal was, ‘Who cares?’”
“Why don't you change the channel if you don't like it and put something else on? You don't have to listen to it. It isn't for everybody. You just can’t judge every single person you see by soundbites. We live in a world of... [empty] headlines.”
Democratic leanings
As for Keith’s political reputation, that was also misleading. You see, despite having performed more than 190 USO shows, he’d always thought of himself as a democrat, not a conservative!
“The roughest part of going through the political controversy was being misread by both sides,” Keith explained. It was like, ‘Why do I have to be a Republican to support the military?’”
“I want to be supportive”
Keith continued, “We have a President sending sons and daughters to fight in wars, and — right or wrong — I want to be supportive of them and have them come home to some support.”
He further explained his position, adding, “I’m okay with everybody ranting about the war. War sucks. But when you start hating on each other… [it] becomes a big war at home over who’s right or wrong.”
Trump concert
It wasn’t the last time Keith received some criticism for his political leanings. Fast-forward to 2017 and he caused a ripple when he performed at Donald Trump’s pre-inauguration concert. He addressed this choice in an interview with Entertainment Weekly in 2017.
“I don’t apologize for performing for our country or military,” he said. “I performed at events for previous Presidents [George W.] Bush and [Barack] Obama and over 200 shows in Iraq and Afghanistan for the USO.”
In the limelight
They do say that no press is bad press, and if Keith’s continuing success was anything to go by, the old adage rings true. Just a few years later in 2005 he hit the country chart number-one slot again!
The song owed itself in part to Keith’s father, who’d had a favorite saying he himself had heard from Burt Reynolds. It ran, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.”
Reflective hit
By some strange coincidence, the line inspired Keith’s co-writer friend Scotty Emerick to come up with the future hit song “As Good As I Once Was” and Keith’s fans got a rare look at his reflective side.
The song stayed at the top of the charts for six long weeks, a joint personal best matched only by his previous track “Beer For My Horses.” No doubt his enduring popularity also helped with what came next.
Screen career
To begin with, Keith tried his hand on the big screen. In 2006 he starred in a comedy movie about a washed-out country singer called Broken Bridges in which he meets his estranged teenage daughter.
And did you recognize the song title “Beer For My Horses” from somewhere else? That’s because the singer also co-wrote a movie based on it with the same name. He played a role in it too, of course!
Another string to his bow
And speaking of drawing inspiration from his music, Keith cleverly leveraged his fame to branch out into another area, too. You might have heard of, or even eaten at, his steakhouse restaurant chain?
I Love This Bar and Grill, a play on Keith’s hit song “I Love This Bar,” began in Oklahoma City. This meant that — as People magazine quoted Keith as saying — he’d always “have a bar to come home to.”
Philanthropy
Yet it wasn’t just his own family that Keith had on his mind as his success grew. He also considered others, which is reflected in his many charitable donations. In fact, he and Covel were keen philanthropists.
Keith was a fundraiser for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, and in 2004 he also assisted in founding Ally’s House, a charity focused on helping children in Oklahoma with cancer. In fact, he donated $500,000 in 2009 alone!
His own diagnosis
Yet tragically, Keith would soon have to face his own battle with cancer, one which he announced on Instagram in 2022. Apparently, his diagnosis had come at the end of the previous year.
Keith had undergone chemotherapy for six months and had even undergone surgery, but he was optimistic about the results. “So far, so good,” he wrote. “I need time to breathe, recover, and relax.”
Tour dates canceled
With that in mind, he also understandably canceled his tours, with a mind to pick them up again when he recovered. “I will see the fans sooner than later,” he reported. “I can’t wait.”
Actually, he was back sooner than perhaps many people expected — and he was performing live, too! In 2023 he played two shows in Norman, Oklahoma, and he also took to the stage for another reason later that year.
Country Music Icon Award
In September 2023 Keith attended the People's Choice Country Awards, but he wasn’t just there as a guest. As a little surprise, he was also presented with the year’s inaugural Country Music Icon Award.
The treatment he’d undergone had done nothing to dampen his trademark wit. “Bet you thought you'd never see me in skinny jeans,” he said in his speech. “I want to thank the Almighty for allowing me to be here tonight.”
“Riding shotgun”
“He’s been riding shotgun with me for a little while,” Keith continued. “I want to thank my beautiful family. A lot of people go into making a career like this of 30 years.”
In his acceptance speech Keith paid homage to a great number of people involved in his rise to stardom. And then he ended with, “Most of all, I want to thank the fans for still allowing us to do what we do.”
Brought the house down
The legendary country singer ended with an emotional and multi-layered performance of his song “Don’t Let The Old Man In.” Needless to say it brought down the house, and it left many in the audience in tears.
Chief among those going through Keith’s emotions with him was his wife, who was watching in the crowd. She couldn’t hold back the waterworks as Keith sang the lyrics, “Try to love on your wife, And stay close to your friends.”
Opening up about cancer
The following month, Keith’s performance dominated the digital sales chart, and he gave another three nights of live performances at the end of the year. During the time after, he spoke earnestly about his cancer experiences.
“It’s a lot of dark hallways,” he told News 9 in 2024. “Cancer is a roller coaster, so it's like, you just sit here and wait on it to go away, and it may not ever go away.”
“In the back of your mind”
Keith continued, “If it goes into remission, it will still be in the back of your mind. You take it for granted on the days that things are good, and you lean on it when days are bad.”
“It has taught me to lean on a little more every day,” he revealed. All the same, as it has been his whole life, Keith revealed that the biggest source of his continued determination was his family.
Glowing tribute
Keith spoke very highly of his wife in a 2024 interview with KWTV-DT. “She’s been a trooper. She’s the best nurse.” And she’d had his back ever since his initial diagnosis.
“The first time we went to Houston, to the hospital, she stepped right in and she just took control and said, ‘We got this. Let’s go.’” As we now know, tragically Keith lost his battle with cancer in February 2024.
“Grace and courage”
The singer’s family released a statement on his social media that read, “Toby Keith passed peacefully last night on February 5 surrounded by his family. He fought his fight with grace and courage.”
Keith’s legacy lives on in his wife and children. Shelley likes to keep her private life private, Stelen is an entrepreneur and Krystal is a musician, just like her father. No doubt he remained proud of them all to the end.