Tim McGraw has heard a lot of rumors about himself over the years. This fall he finally cleared one up, and he had a lot more to say than a simple no.
If you don’t know the name, Tim is the country star behind “Humble and Kind” and “Don’t Take the Girl.” He’s been married to fellow singer Faith Hill since 1996, and in October he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. It’s been quite a year for him.
The rumor was about Taylor Swift.
Before Taylor married football star Travis Kelce, reports said Tim would be one of the performers. Plenty of fans believed it, and you can see why. Taylor started out as a teenage country singer, and her very first single, sent to country radio on June 19, 2006, was a song called “Tim McGraw.” She came up with it in a high school math class and wrote it in about 15 minutes, then finished it with co-writer Liz Rose.
Tim’s reaction at the time still makes people laugh. “Have I gotten to that age now to where they’re singing songs about me? Does that mean I’ve jumped the shark a bit?”
On May 15, 2007, Taylor sang the song at the ACM Awards. It was her first awards-show performance, and Tim was sitting right there in the front row. Stay with this clip after the last note, because that’s when the young singer turns to greet the man she wrote it about.
Taylor sings “Tim McGraw” to Tim himself at the 2007 ACM Awards
So did Tim sing at her wedding all these years later? He told Esquire in a new video interview that he didn’t.
“I didn’t perform at her wedding. That was a rumor. Surprise, the internet’s not always correct.”
But the part that really caught people off guard came next. Tim said Taylor has stayed close to his whole family.
“Taylor’s always been close to our family, our girls. She’s been to our house and hung out with our girls.”
It goes back to 2007. That year Tim and Faith brought the teenager along as the opening act on their Soul2Soul II Tour. Tim remembers she was “really just her and a guitar, and I think she had one other guitar player with her, just her on stage singing.”
And she wasn’t left on her own backstage. Tim said “every night we would spend time in the dressing room talking and Faith would talk with her.”
He could tell she was soaking it all up. “She’s very smart about wanting to find out as much as she could about the industry,” he said. He called her “a genius songwriter” and “one of the most talented people I’ve ever met.”
Tim tells the whole story himself in his sit-down with Esquire, and it’s worth hearing how warmly he talks about those dressing room chats with Faith.
Tim McGraw’s Esquire interview, where he sets the record straight
As for the groom, Tim kept it short and kind. “we couldn’t be happier for her to find Travis, who’s a cool guy as well.”
So no, Tim didn’t sing at the wedding. But the way he talks about Taylor, it sounds like she’s been part of the McGraw family for almost 20 years.