Cody Johnson has a big night coming up. On Nov. 18, the Texas singer is up for Entertainer of the Year at the CMA Awards, the top prize in country music. He has four nominations in all, including two for his song “The Fall.” The show airs on ABC from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, with Lainey Wilson as host.
Away from the stage, some of Cody’s best stories start at home with his wife, Brandi. One of them starts with a text message.
He told it in 2025 on SiriusXM’s The Highway, sitting down with host Cody Alan. “So Brandi did this weird thing,” Cody said. She had just run to town, and then she sent him a simple request.
“Hey, can you come out to the barn and help me unload my truck?”
Cody went out to help. What he found did not need two people. “It’s this little bitty box,” he said.
He carried it anyway, and he let her know what he thought about it. “You 100 percent could have done this yourself,” he told her.
Most husbands know that feeling. You get called outside for a job that takes ten seconds, and you start to wonder what’s really going on. Cody did too. “I unload it, and I’m trying to figure out what’s going on,” he said.
At the time, Cody and Brandi had two daughters. “Clara’s 10, Cori’s eight,” he told SiriusXM.
Clara, the oldest, has a special job in the Johnson house. “Clara, my oldest, we call her the cry police because if you ever like tear up over a movie or something,” Cody explained. She keeps a close eye on everyone. “She’ll look you up and down,” he said.
His girls have always watched their dad closely. In an older interview with PeopleTV, Cody talked about how his daughters copy his performances at home.
Cody talks about his daughters copying his shows
Back at the barn, Brandi wasn’t finished. “Oh, and I do have one more thing in there if you can get that,” she said.
Then she added, “Oh, by the way, here you can have this too.” Cody finished the story simply. “And it was a pregnancy test.”
Baby No. 3 was on the way.
Cody’s first thought was the girls. “Are we gonna tell the girls? Like, when do we tell them? Are we waiting?” he asked.
When the big moment came, the cry police went straight to work on her dad. “She’s like, ‘Are you crying?’ I was crying,” Cody said.
Then Clara broke down too. “And she burst into tears, happy though,” he said. Her words, as Cody told it: “I’m gonna be a big sister.”
As for telling the rest of the world, Cody figured the ACM Awards would take care of that. “I think when she shows up at the ACMs and she looks like she’s smuggling a volleyball in her dress,” he joked, “it’s gonna be pretty obvious.”
Their son, Jaycee Daniel Johnson, was born Oct. 21, 2025, so he just turned 1. Cody shared the news weeks later on Country Countdown USA with Lon Helton. “Yeah, baby Jaycee, finally got my boy,” he said.
SiriusXM posted this clip of Cody and Cody Alan talking about having another baby, and EverythingNash shared it with its write-up of the barn story. You can hear Cody talk about the new baby in his own words.
Cody tells SiriusXM’s Cody Alan about baby No. 3
Jaycee even has a song of his own now. “Bible For A Boy (For Jaycee)” is track 8 on Cody’s album “Banks of the Trinity,” which came out June 26.
Cody’s song for his son, Jaycee
When Cody walks into Bridgestone Arena on Nov. 18, he’ll be hoping to hear his name called for the biggest award of the night. Back home, a 1-year-old boy and two big sisters will be cheering for him, and one of them will be checking to see if Daddy cries.