Reba McEntire and her longtime boyfriend, Rex Linn, got engaged in December 2024, but they didn’t officially confirm the news until this September, on the Emmys red carpet of all places. Reba told People there are a couple of reasons for that.
“We got engaged December the 24th, Christmas Eve at Leiper’s Fork [in Tennessee],” Reba told People for its current cover story. She and Rex were “going to make the announcement when we got back to LA in January.” But then, she noted, “the fires happened” — the deadly LA wildfires that destroyed over 18,000 homes and burned over 57,000 acres — and Reba decided, “It wasn’t appropriate.”
But after that, said Reba, “[T]he time never presented itself until the Emmys, when it just happened.”
As for the proposal, Reba, 70, described it as a “total surprise” and “very romantic,” but added that she and Rex, 68, don’t know when they’re actually going to tie the knot.
“I totally was thrilled to death. I asked him, ‘Well, when do you want to do this?”” Reba shared. “He said, ‘Let’s have fun with the engagement time.’ So we haven’t set a date or anything. We’re just enjoying each other.”
Reba and Rex, who’ve been dating since 2020, are costars on the NBC sitcom Happy’s Place. She told People, “He loves to hug and he tells me he loves me an awful lot. I’ve never been loved by a man like Rex Linn. Rex is a very tender-hearted man, and I just love him with all my heart. He’s a good guy. Real bashful though.”
“I was not looking for love at all. So it just happened at the right time, right place,” she added. “God’s timing is everything.”
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