The Secret to Tim McGraw and Faith Hill’s Early Romance? Grandma’s Dumplings!
Tim McGraw and Faith Hill's love was spontaneous, but that doesn't mean he didn't have to romance her. This week's episode of the Secret History of Country Music explores how McGraw won Hill's heart and what happened to the man she was engaged to at the time.
The short answer to how McGraw, now 53 years old, made Hill feel some kind of way is: Food — specifically dumplings. Watch the video below to learn how his grandmother was involved, and for him to share much more detail than you bargained for.
It was the mid-'90s, and neither McGraw nor Hill were raking in the cash quite yet, so he would look for ways to feed his friends on the cheap. So, he called Grandma and asked for her chicken and dumplings recipe. Then, he brought it down to his neighbor, Hill.
"This is what got me laid, was the chicken and dumplings," he revealed during Oprah Winfrey's Master Class interview.
You have to go back a bit further to find the pair talking about their respective partners at the time, when the famous Spontaneous Combustion Tour began. While the pair knew each other by 1996, having met at CRS several years earlier, they weren't dating until the music began. At the time, Hill was engaged to famous producer Scott Hendricks, who is still active today and producers artists like Blake Shelton and Dan + Shay.
"If someone is going to judge my character because I was engaged to somebody and then I left him for somebody else," Hill told People in 1998, "I can't control that. But I wasn't about to let Tim slip through my hands."
The country couple would marry in October of 1996 and have three daughters together. Over the last two decades they've toured together two more times and record several duets.
Watch more Secret History of Country Music below — then check out Tim and Faith's best pictures through the years.
See the Best Pictures of Tim McGraw With Faith Hill: