It’s been six months since the country music legend Toby Keith died of cancer at the age of 62. He is still missed by millions of fans to this day.
During his life, Keith was known for being a proud supporter of the United Service Organizations (USO). Over the course of his career, he took 18 USO tours around the world to perform for over 250,000 U.S. military service members.
That’s why it’s come as a surprise to learn that while Keith was eager for his daughter Krystal Keith to perform with him onstage, he was adamant about her not tagging along on his USO tours.
Toby Refused To Let His Daughter Come On USO Tours
Fathers everywhere will likely be able to relate to the reason why he felt so strongly about this.
“I begged to go, but it was such a dangerous thing. He went into, like, dad mode,” Krystal told Fox News. “He was like, ‘No, no, this is really important work I’m going to do, and no, my daughter is not – It’s not something where … I’m going to put you in danger so you can go experience this.'”
“Then as I became an artist, I was like, ‘Hey, I want to go do those things,’ and he still, as much as it meant to him, and he knew how important it was for him, he was still like, ‘Hard pass on my daughter going to Afghanistan right now,’ because he had been shot,” she continued. “I mean, his helicopters had been shot at. He had been in the middle of shows when mortar fire came down.”
Keith Protected His Daughter
Keith loved our troops more than anything besides his family. While he was willing to risk his own life to perform for them, however, he was not about to put his little girl in harm’s way by allowing her to do the same.
“I literally have, when we had his service, I found a picture … There was an underground bunker, and he had like signed on concrete, something about like, ‘I’m in the middle of a show and some idiot set off some fireworks during my show,'” Krystal said.
She added that her father had “signed it and had the date because they were taking on mortar fire and had to go underground.”
Krystal recalled that her dad’s joke was that “they’re shooting off fireworks. How rude of them in the middle of my show.”
Keith ‘Loved The USO Tours’
This memory is just one of many fun ones that Krystal has of her father.
“I just thought that was super cool and really special to find,” she said. “But, you know, he loved the USO tours, and I wish that I would have been able to go on some of those.”
“I did spend time on tour with him,” Krystal concluded. She explained that she “opened for him from the time I was 14 on. I did the anthem. Anytime I’d go out on tour with him, I’d be like, ‘Hey, can I sing tonight?’ He’d be like, ‘Sure, you can go do the anthem. You can come out during this song.'”
Keith’s love for both his daughter and the American military sums up just the kind of person he was. If only we had more people in the entertainment world who have the kind of patriotism that Toby Keith possessed!
More About:Celebrity News
Read This Next
