Reba McEntire, 69, Reveals Why She’s Lost Faith In Marriage – ‘Bound By A Piece Of Paper…’

The country music star Reba McEntire is speaking out this week to reveal why she’s lost faith in marriage, though she was quick to add that she’d be open to marrying her current boyfriend Rex Linn.

McEntire Loses Faith In Marriage After Heartbreak

Fox News reported that McEntire, 69, has been married and divorced twice, first to Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987 and then to Narvel Blackstock from 1989 to 2015. McEntire’s second divorce was particularly difficult for her, as Blackstock quickly started “dating her close friend” Laura Stroud, according to Daily Mail, and the pair have since gone on to marry.

This has led McEntire to question whether she could ever have faith in marriage again.

“I’ve been married twice,” she told E! News. “After the second one dissolved, I don’t have much faith in…being bound by a piece of paper or a ring.”

Related: Reba McEntire Finds Love Again After Painful Divorce

McEntire Finds Love Again

That being said, McEntire is smitten with her boyfriend Rex Linn, who she’s been dating for four years, so she’s open to marriage if it’s something that he really wants to do.

“But I’m truly committed to Rex, so if that’s something he feels totally strong about, that’s fine with me,” she explained. “He’s never been married before. So if he wants to experience that, I’m okay with that.”

Linn is an actor who McEntire met decades ago on a film set, but they reconnected in 2020.

“Rex and I have known each other since 1991, and we have been friends, stayed in communication throughout the years, and then in 2020 before the pandemic, I was gonna come in to do an episode of ‘Young Sheldon,’ which Rex has been on since the very beginning,” she recalled.

“And so he texted me and said, ‘Are you coming to L.A. to shoot ’Young Sheldon’?’ And I said, ‘Yeah.’ And he said, ‘Let’s go to dinner when you’re through.’ And I said ‘Okay,'” McEntire added. “Well, we had about a 12-hour day and I text him back, I said ‘I’m too tired but I’m coming back next week to L.A., so we’ll have our dinner then.’ And I don’t know what it was, timing is everything. I’ve been married twice and for some reason, Rex Linn was…it was just like a magnet.”

Related: Reba McEntire Reveals How She Fell In Love With Boyfriend Rex Linn – ‘I Couldn’t Get Close Enough To Him’

‘It Was Very Special’

Since this was right when the COVID-19 pandemic was getting started, McEntire and Linn didn’t see much of each other for months, but they “created an intimacy by texting and talking over the telephone we wouldn’t have gotten if we’d had been together, all that time, so it was very special.”

“It was a great way of finding out about each other without ever touching,” she continued. “And we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since June 16 of 2020. It was a wonderful way to get to know each other better.”

After what she’s been through in the past, McEntire feels that she doesn’t need a marriage certificate to tell her just how in love she is with Linn.

“He is a very caring, down-to-earth, funny individual,” she concluded. “He’s got a very witty sense of humor, very creative, and I make him laugh. And that’s what he said he’s always prayed for is, ‘God, please put me with a woman that makes me laugh.’ Because he loves to laugh.”

While marriage is a beautiful thing that should be respected, anyone who has been through a bitter divorce will be able to understand why McEntire could be questioning whether she could ever have faith in it again. Only time will tell if Linn is able to convince McEntire to walk down the aisle for a third time, but we wish them many years of happiness to come regardless!