Lorrie Morgan's Spicy Hot Husband Count

When all a man gets in his divorce is his beloved pickup truck, you know it's a country music story. To be fair, he also got $65k because his ex-wife was country music (and hot chicken) legend Lorrie Morgan. Her 6 marriages are the stuff country songs are made of - literally! Her messy divorce from Jon Randall led to him writing the Brad Paisley/Alison Krauss hit "Whisky Lullaby".

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When you listen to yourself, like when you are re
listening to the show to edit it. Do you sound
so different you sound.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah, it's honestly doing it for so long, it's changed
hearing both of us. I get to keep telling myself,
oh man, this doesn't sound like me. But then I
listen to your voice and it sounds exactly like I
hear you. So I think that, oh, okay, well then
I must sound like I sound. But also, sometimes, just
in the world, just your own voice, I think it

(00:29):
can get away from you. And if I not, if
I'm not paying attention to how I'm speaking, if I'm
not putting some effort into the voice that I want
to have right, then sometimes it's like your posture slumping
and link your voice agains really lazy and gross.

Speaker 3 (00:46):
That's true sometimes like now my throat, sit up, speak normally,
not three your nows, and actually this is I would say,
this is closer to my normal natural voice data day.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
Now, this is this is how I sat.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
That's your very white impression, very white, very white wishes,
very white wishes. That's that's your single, very white Wishes.
Sing a few lines of your new single, very White Wishes.

Speaker 2 (01:15):
I went down to the store.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
Oh, and I.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
Bought myself some more socks because my feet were getting big.

Speaker 4 (01:28):
And I went back to my house and I put
on both those socks, and I also put on my
hot pink wig, and then I danced around the room
and I said, hey, look at me.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
But no one else was around. So I was a
lone kale. And I jumped and screamed and sang, and
I took a bell and I rang until all the
neighbors came up to my door. You know what's that
to do?

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Very white was funky? Okay, what is this country song
you singing?

Speaker 2 (02:09):
I don't know. I'm in the I'm in a country
song mood.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
I guess today, I guess.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
So talk about transitions. We're getting right into it because
we are in. We're in. We're in the South today
in Tennessee, Kentucky. Oh wow, Ashville.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Bluegrass and Banjo's.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
Classic seventies, eighties, nineties country pop music. Dinah, what's your
relationship to country music? We don't really talk about this
because I don't think either us has much of one.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I mean, I don't have much one, although I have
a lot of family from Kentucky. Yeah, So there are
a lot of bluegrass lovers, a lot of gospel records
going on in Grandma's house, and mom Mom loves that
stuff here.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Yeah, I did always like Johnny Cash sure like old
school country. I never really liked pop country. That never
appealed to me. I will say, after watching Oh Brother,
We're I loved that soundtrack. Yeah, I did. Played that
soundtrack a lot.

Speaker 2 (03:05):
That got us all into like old timey bluegrass, right
like we were all like, give me them down by
the river gospel music.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yo, I want the soggy bottom boys, but I want
to I want to party. Let's put on the soggy
Bottom boys.

Speaker 2 (03:18):
Similarly like I love that Oh Brother style, you know,
real old timey, scratchy vinyl record, big rock, candy mountain
kind of stuff. For me, I would say my strongest
relationship to country music is also very old, not quite
as old, but forties fifties. I think, like Marty Robbins,
like cowboy music, word out in the out in the
Old West, and honest, I'll be fully honest, this kid

(03:42):
was born out of playing Fallout New Vegas, huh, because
the soundtrack to that game is a lot of old
cowboy music. Yeah, and and there was playing in the background.
I think Big Iron was one of the big songs
that played in that game a lot on the radio,
and I was like, this is kind of a pop
what's going on here with Marty Robbins And I just

(04:03):
when I drove for the first time by myself out west,
when I hit the desert, I was like, this is
what I'm putting on. And I put on like a
playlist and was just jamming to these old, you know,
old cowboy country hits.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Thank Williams je Sure that kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
I don't know, I really connected to it. And now
whenever I'm in the desert, I feel like I need
to listen to that music makes sense.

Speaker 1 (04:25):
I was just about to say this. I will never
say that I dislike an entire genre of music right
because I don't think music works that way. I feel
like music is so much about your mood and your
surroundings and what kind of mood you want to be in. Fully,
I'm not gonna if I'm just like pulling up Spotify
clean in the house, I'm not going to choose country music.

(04:47):
But there's a time and a place where that's the
only thing you need to have on or else. It
just doesn't. It just a fits so well. It makes
you feel like, I don't know, like driving through the desert.
It's like you have the right soundtrack.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
I've seen you kick down a door and take out
an entire gang of like drug dealers and thieves and
you put on like def Leppard, you know it, Yeah,
and it's it's perfect.

Speaker 1 (05:10):
What else?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
I think that's pretty cool. I mean, you're you're always
like doing wall kicks and like flipping and you know,
knocking down three dudes at a time one and you've
got some serious heavy metal going on. Ye, it works.
I totally get it. Well, we should get into it
because today's episode, obviously we're talking about country music. This
episode was born out of a simple, little brief, not

(05:32):
even three sentence message on Instagram from our listener, Courtney
May Klaus at CM Klaus eight thirty on Instagram. And
side note, I cannot say the name Klaus without saying
Klaus Klaus because it's just it sounds like it should
be that so Courtney message us simply saying, listen to
the story of Sha and the story of the Butterfly

(05:54):
sounds an awful lot like the song Whiskey Lullaby once
you said beneath the Willow Tree. And as people who
don't know a lot about especially pop country music, we figured,
all right, let's look up this song. It's Brad Paisley
and Alison Krause called Whiskey Lullaby. I'm like, oh, a duet.
Are they a couple? No, they're not. So I'm like,

(06:15):
all right, well, nevermind, maybe there's nothing here. But as
I'm just sort of glancing at the lyrics of this song,
I come to find out that one of the writers,
John Randall, was inspired for some of the lyrics to
this song by his very challenging divorce from country singer
Laurie Morgan. And whenever either of us I think finds
out that two people were married or divorced, were like,

(06:37):
wait a minute, is this an episode? Was it ridiculous?
You know? Well, it turns out, my friends, that country
legend Laurie Morgan was married no less than six times,
and it does get pretty ridiculous there for a minute.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
So Country music King Henry, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
So thank you so much, Courtney, because from that little
offhanded reference to a song, you've given us a full episode. Hey, kloud,
let's dive in find out about Lauri Morgan, her six
husbands and the devastating divorce that would lead to a
country hits.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Let's get on this horse and rat hey their friends
come listen. Well, Eli and Diana got some stories to tell.
There's no matchmaking o romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
I love.

Speaker 1 (07:26):
There might be any type of person at all, an
abstract concept or a concrete wall. But if there's a story,
We're the second Glance and show Ridiculous Romance, A production
of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
All right. Lori Morgan. She was born in nineteen fifty nine.
Her father was famed country legend George Morgan. Now this
is my kind of music because George was known as
a country crooner. So he had a voice like a
rat pack Vegas lounge singer, right, just real smooth, deep voice,
beautiful singer. But he put this talents into country songs. Now,

(08:02):
his daughter, Laurie was born in fifty nine, and her
full name was Loretta Lynn Morgan. And of course everyone
is thinking, well, she was named after my favorite country legend,
Loretta Lynn. Yeah, corect But actually Laurie was born in
nineteen fifty nine, Loretta Lynn did not come to Nashville
to get famous until about nineteen sixty one, so she

(08:23):
was just named that by coincidence. In fact, Laurie was
on Larry King's show doing an interview and she said
that Loretta Lynn always referred to her as her namesake,
which she was very proud of, of course, but that's
not really the case. It was just kind of a
naming coincidence, just a good sound in country name.

Speaker 1 (08:40):
I guess, Rede Lynn just a popular name at the
reta Lynn.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
She got welcomed into the country music biz in nineteen
seventy two when she performed with her dad at the
Grand Ole Opry at just thirteen years old. Laurie and
her dad, George sang the song paper Roses Together, which
had first been recorded by Anita Bryant innineteen sixty. Okay,
and like side note, we're just gonna go ahead and

(09:04):
call Anita Bryant this week's villain of the week because
in the nineteen seventies she's the bit you made it
her business to protests against gay rights.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (09:16):
She was also one of the first public figures to
get pied in the face. There you go, take that Anita.
The pie thrower was Tom L. Higgins, who is the
author and gay rights activist who coined the term gay pride.

Speaker 2 (09:28):
Oh okay, so.

Speaker 1 (09:30):
Thanks Anita Bryant. You helped a few thousand people learn
more about gay history today.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
There you go. What a legacy your life, schoal. I
didn't know who coined the term gay pride. I thought
it was just always out there. Oh.

Speaker 1 (09:43):
Also another thing about Anita Bryant, because I like dunking
on her. Vincent Price once said in a TV interview
that Oscar Wild's play A Woman of No Importance must
be about Nita Bryant.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
He Vince Price's the best. Also, apparently Johnny Carterson like
every week, had on any to Bryant dunk. Yes, Johny
was relentless making fun of her.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
I love that, Thank you, Johnny. Also in twenty twenty one,
Anita's granddaughter, Sarah Green, announced that she was engaged to
a woman and was having a hard time deciding if
she should invite her grandmother to the Sarah Moon. So
all the best to Sarah. I hope your wedding was
lovely and Anita.

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Free anyway, So Laurie Morgan and her dad George sang
Paper Roses and they got a standing ovation at the
grand O Lobry, but sadly, just three years later, her
father died after complications from heart surgery. Now Laurie she's sixteen.
She went on to tour with members from his band
and eventually she went to work for the publishing firm
Acuff Rose Music as a receptionist and a demo singer,

(10:44):
and in nineteen seventy nine this led to her singing
with Hickory Records and she put out two singles, Two
People in Love and tell Me I'm Only Dreaming, and
these both charted with Billboard's Hot Country Songs. But by
the end of the year she had also released I'm
Completely Satisfied with You, and this was a duet that

(11:06):
she made with her father using archived vocals of his
and like some some new fangled electronic manipulation supposed to
be real sweet and this also made the charts. And
then she started touring with nightclubs. She was opening for
musicians who, if you know country, are big names like
Jack Green, Genie Seely, and Billy Thundercloud, who I found

(11:26):
out was a First Nations Canadian country singer. Cool name yeah,
he had the first full First Nations band and they
were all like or at least, you know, on the
charts or something like that, but they were all they
all they were pretty famous.

Speaker 1 (11:42):
You think using someone's archived vocals to do a duet
with controversial like them, like in the AI John Lennon thing.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
I don't think. I don't know. I don't know because
I don't find the John Lennon thing to be that
controversial myself because they're not generating. It's not like Lennon
never took part in this song. They found a song
that he did record and used AI to like make
it sound good, right, right.

Speaker 1 (12:08):
So the name is like a hologram John Lennon walking
out and being like, eat tostitos.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Yeah right, Oh, everybody eat tostitos. Delicious. Here's a day
in the life of me. First, I started the day
with delicious, lucky charms.

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Damn John Lennon. That's when you get mad. We need
to get mad. Is when they start to make John
Lennon say some shit they would never say.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Imagine all the people drinking fool just coffee.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Okay, back to Laurie. Sorry, I'm going all over place.
So at twenty years old, Laurie Morgan started touring as
a backup vocalist for international country superstar George Jones.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
I've heard that name sure.

Speaker 1 (12:53):
While she was there, she met another young up and
comer named Sammy Kershaw, and they flew. You know, they
probably had a little fling on the you know, a
little some something, but it was nothing serious because Laurie's
real focus was on George Jones's bassist, a young man
named Ron Gaddis, and when he met Laurie, his baseline

(13:15):
hit a solid country group or something. I don't know,
I don't know bass country music based terms. Okay, he he,
He plucked her string just right.

Speaker 2 (13:27):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
Anyway, so she and Ron Gaddis hit it off and
they got married late in nineteen seventy nine. No, it's
not much known about their marriage. They did have a
daughter together, named Morgan Anastasia Gaddis. Anastasia was Laurie's mother's
full name. But unfortunately their marriage only lasted about two
years and it ended in divorce, and we don't know
how or why, or like what happened to Ron after,

(13:49):
but Laurie's career continued to grow. In nineteen eighty four,
At twenty five years old, she became the youngest inductee
of the Grand Ole Opry and the next year she
met Keith whitt So.

Speaker 2 (14:01):
Keith Whitley is another country star making huge waves and
when they started dating in nineteen eighty five, they were
like the ultimate country music power couple, right. The speed
like today non country comparison is like Billie Eilish and

(14:22):
you know, one of the one of the one of
the one of the one of the one of the
one the of the uh uh a stroke.

Speaker 1 (14:32):
You can't think of a single name.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
No, I've got it. It's the band the K pop guys.
Oh the b yeah BTS, one of the Billie Eilish
and a BTS. Those are comparable aged people, right, sure,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Don't know.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
Damn, we're so lame when it comes to music. We're like,
we're not that into country music. But otherwise we also
know nothing about pop music, all right, So anyway, it
was a big deal, is all. I'm getting that here.

Speaker 1 (15:03):
You could have just said jay Z and Beyonce.

Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, it wasn't that big though.

Speaker 1 (15:09):
Too much. That's okay, that's too far. No one's like
jay Z and Beyonce except Jay Z freak exactly.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
How dare I est? All right? So big country power couple.
But Keith had kind of a rough life up to
this point. He grew up in Sandy Hook, Kentucky, which
is in a dry county, lots of dry counties in Kentucky.
You can't buy alcohol there. And what happens is some
of the teenagers there who are in the rural Kentucky

(15:39):
where I don't know if you know, but there's not
a lot to do, so they start trying to fill
their time by drinking bootleg whiskey. You know, some moonshine
out of a jar in the backyard somewhere, and they
would race their cars around the Kentucky mountains, which, obviously,
while drinking, is a bad combination. Once Keith was riding

(16:01):
shotgun in a car with his friend, and his friend,
who was driving, tried to pull a turn at one
hundred and twenty miles an hour. While the car wrecked
and his friend, the driver, was killed. Keith himself nearly
broke his neck and barely survived the accident. Keith also
once drove a car off a cliff into a frozen river.

(16:22):
He managed to only break his collar bone this time.
But in nineteen eighty three, Keith's brother Randy and his
father Elmer died in a motorcycle accident.

Speaker 1 (16:32):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
So just a lot of challenges, tragedy, pain, heartbreak, and
despite all this success, which I'm sure fueled a lot
of his music, Keith was battling with alcoholism his whole
life and depression I'm sure as well.

Speaker 1 (16:47):
But he and Laurie tied the knot in nineteen eighty six.
A year in they had a son named Jesse Keith Whitley,
and Keith even adopted Laurie's daughter, Morgan from her previous
marriage with the bassist. Both of their careers worre skyrocketing.
Keith had been recording songs for a new album, but
he kind of felt like they weren't up to his standards,
so he went to RCA. He asked if they could

(17:08):
scrab everything and just start over and let him have,
you know, more creative control with the writing and the
producing of the music.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
Right, most country music is written by other people than
the singers.

Speaker 1 (17:18):
One of the time he's like, let you know, this
ain't hidden. I want to let me let me drive
this train, and they agreed.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
Which is surprising. That's bold for them to He must
have had some real sway shows.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Hey, that shows must be you know, he must have
been making good money. Yeah, so they said, all right,
And in nineteen eighty eight he was topping the country
charts with songs like I'm No Stranger to the Rain,
Oh and don't close your e's.

Speaker 2 (17:43):
Off the top of your head. Do you know any
of the lyrics to I'm No Stranger to the Rain
that you could sing us Diana? Sure?

Speaker 1 (17:49):
Yeah, please, Well, I don't know well bow sunshine. Oh,
I don't know well about blow Oh, but I know
all about thunder because I'm No Stranger to the Rain.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
Totally see why that topped the charts. Beautiful can you? Hey, Hey,
I've got it on looping that for the rest of
the night.

Speaker 1 (18:21):
It's a very good song.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
No, no about flowers anyway, all right.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Meanwhile, Laurie Morgan had signed with RCAs well. She put
out her first single with them in late nineteen eighty eight,
and then in nineteen eighty nine she started touring to
promote her debut album Leave.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
The Light On, Oh Lovely, and so this would have
been the first time that she went out to like
tour on her own name to sell her own music.
But on May ninth, just two days before this album
was released, Keith Whitley woke up. He made a phone
call to his mother and he had breakfast with his
brother in law Lane, Lane was going to take him
golfing and then in the evening, Keith was planning to

(19:02):
sit down and work on songs for him and Laurie
to sing together when she got back. Because Laurie was
still on tour and while she was gone, she asked
Lane to keep an eye on Keith. And this was
the first time that they'd been apart for a long
time since they got married, and she knew enough about Keith,
you know, with his depression, with his alcoholism, to be
worried about him being all alone all of a sudden.

(19:24):
Laane dropped Keith off at home at eight thirty am
and said he would pick him back up in an
hour for golf. When he got back to Keith's place,
Lane found Keith face down on the bed, unresponsive. He
was rushed to the hospital but pronounced dead at the
age of thirty four. The medical examiner said Keith's blood
alcohol level was zero point four to seven, which they

(19:48):
said is the equivalent of drinking thirteen shots of high
proof whiskey back to back.

Speaker 1 (19:53):
Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
Laurie of course was crushed, and she actually spent the
next few years dead dedicated to preserving Keith's memory and
his contributions to country music, and in nineteen eighty four,
in an interview, she said, quote, at this point in
my life, if I met another Keith Whitley, I would
walk away because I don't think I could handle it.
But as far as him being the one, yeah, I

(20:16):
think we could have lasted forever.

Speaker 1 (20:18):
Oh that's so.

Speaker 2 (20:19):
Yeah. Get a sense for how challenging it probably was.
She's like, I don't think I could handle it. No,
someone who's very famous and powerful and also very depressed
and an alcoholic. That's got to be really challenging.

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Well, and you know, from her perspective, she's thinking of
all of everything while he was alive, and also having
to deal with him dying that way. Like I think
she's like also saying, I can't do that again. I
cannot be told my brother called me and is telling
me that my husband's unrespondiyeh, and all this stuff. Yeah, right,
Like that would be really hard to go through once, but.

Speaker 2 (20:57):
It was definitely not her last whirlwind row Man. It's
in fact, that's just number two of her six marriages.
So we're gonna come back. They do keep getting crazier
and crazier. We'll take a quick break. We'll be right
back right after this. Welcome back to the show, y'all.

(21:20):
We had some good commercials. Now they're done and we're good.
Keep on telling you this story. Unfortunately it doesn't end
with the good. Oh that is spoiler alert. There's no
shootings in this.

Speaker 1 (21:41):
No shooting, right, dudes. Okay, so we know Loriie, you know,
very devastated by the Keith Whitley death. So it was
a few years before Laurie started looking for love again.
But in nineteen ninety one she had a marriage more
like her first marriage in that we don't know much
about it and it didn't last very long.

Speaker 2 (21:59):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
His name was Brad Thompson and he was the bus
driver for country star Clint Black.

Speaker 2 (22:06):
I know that name, do you?

Speaker 1 (22:07):
I didn't?

Speaker 2 (22:08):
Yeah, Clint Black famous enough for me to be familiar
with his name when I see.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
It, famous enough that should be on his tour bus.
Famous enough for Eli Banks to know about hahu. Now,
Laurie was touring with Clint and she had her eye
on Brad. But you know, he's the bus driver. He's
not gonna go ask out one of the hit stars
of the tour. That would be maybe a bit presumptuous
what Brad to do. So Laurie's like, this one's on me.

(22:34):
She went and asked him out, and soon Brad asked
Laurie to marry him. Five months later she did, with
Clint Black standing as Brad's best man. Pretty cool, but
it turned out that Brad had a drinking problem that
Laurie did not know about. Man Once she came home
from a tour to find Brad getting ready to take

(22:54):
her son Jesse out in the snow, and she's like,
what y'all doing? And Brad said, quote, I'm gonna pull Jessie.
I want to slip brown mastruck. Oh, And of course
Laurie could smell the alcohol on him, even if he
didn't sound like I just sounded just smell it. So
she flipped out about this because of course we already
know she has a bad history of people who were alcoholics. Yeah,

(23:16):
she was also already stressed out. She had some bad
money problems and even worse health problems because after a
few weeks of having like constant pain in her abdomen,
Laurie discovered that she had endometriosis.

Speaker 2 (23:30):
Oh yeah. Her doctors recommended that she have surgery to
have the cysts on her ovaries removed, but while she
was on the operating table, the surgeons decided that it
would be best for her to have a full hysterectomy.
Since she was under of course, she could not decide
or consent to this, but her husband could, so it

(23:51):
was up to Brad. The doctors went to him and
were like, Hey, should we should give your wife a hysterectomy?
You in or you out?

Speaker 1 (23:58):
Yeah, sign here or whatever.

Speaker 2 (24:00):
I mean, Like, I can't imagine that's a fun choice
for Brad either, not because he's got to not only
if he ever cares about having kids with her, you know,
that's something he has to consider. And also, oh, I'm
making this huge life changing decision for you, but also
it might it's medically necessary and you might have to
go into surgery again later. Nobody wants to do it twice.

Speaker 1 (24:19):
No, there's really this feels like a situation where there's
no way to be right yeah or do a good
yeah for real. I feel like either way you can
get in a lot of well.

Speaker 2 (24:29):
He decided that they should go for it, and so
she didn't even find out that she'd had her uterus
removed until she woke up from the operation. She wrote
that she was depressed when she found out that she
wouldn't have any more kids, but ultimately she's, you know,
a very religious person. She said, it's it's God's will.
I'm okay with that. Plus, of course, she was not

(24:52):
so sure that things were going to work out with Brad,
and she thought maybe having another kid with him would
have been a bad move anyway, and sure enough, she
filed for divorce from Brad in nineteen ninety three, less
than two years after they got married. She said she
basically never saw or heard from him again, although reports
say that in their divorce, Laurie gave Brad sixty five

(25:15):
thousand dollars and a pickup truck, which also sounds like
a country song making sure does I got sixty five
thousand dollars, ain't a pickup truck in my divorce? And
now I'm going on to eat a pie.

Speaker 1 (25:29):
Oh wow, I thought it was gonna be something about
like and and a pickup truck. And now all see
is you in my rear view?

Speaker 2 (25:38):
Oh see that's pretty good. Now we got something. Somebody
call up John Randalls. This nice. So Brad got the
sixty five K the pickup truck. Apparently, she also gave
him back all his possessions, which included a photo of
him that said World's greatest bus driver. Sure I would
brought that back too. I also would find no reason

(26:00):
to keep that if in the divorce, I don't need this,
you can have Yes, you can have your weird picture back.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
Well. Now, before Laurie's divorce with Brad was finalized and
he had his pickup treck, she was dating the Dallas
Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman.

Speaker 2 (26:17):
Oooh do you know Troy Aikman.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Not at all? Oh man less than Clint Black. Do
I know Troy aiks Wow?

Speaker 2 (26:23):
Okay, I mean I was. You know, I was never
a big football fan, but when I was a kid,
you know, early nineties, Stephanie, Troy Aikman was a huge name.
It was like him, Dan Marino, Oj Simpson, all of
them turned out great.

Speaker 1 (26:39):
Out fantastic, still making headlines.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Because well, that's for sure, some more than others.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
Right. I think the only name in the nineties that
I knew related to sports was Dave Justice and Chipper
Jones because the nineteen ninety six Braves won the World Series.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
Oh there you go. Yeah, I wasn't in Atlanta yet.
I didn't know Chipper Jones to he moved down here,
but I never knew Dave Justice. Dave Justice and Chipper
jas also sounds like a country song to me. Old
ages to say, Chipper Jones going down Lanta and they're
entering your homes. I don't know they're entering their own.
I think I said your homes.

Speaker 1 (27:15):
Why are they coming to my house? It sounds kind
of scary, like funny games like Justice and they're entering
your homes causing psychological damage?

Speaker 2 (27:28):
Wow? I thought maybe they were just like signing baseball's
or something. Why are they negative? Right away?

Speaker 1 (27:40):
I really start therapy again, Really, ship, I should look
into this. Why is like the first thing I saw,
I was like, they're trying to murder me? All right,
You're like, oh, it's like a nice make a wish
type is it?

Speaker 2 (27:59):
But and then you go said, I'm just like they're
coming into sign baseballs and you're like, it's my last wish. Wow,
you're so.

Speaker 1 (28:07):
Right, it's so naked psychological damage. Well for another podcast.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
Get a Better Help sponsorship over here.

Speaker 1 (28:22):
We'll start another struggle what the fuck is wrong with Diana?
And it'll just be me to asking better Help what's
wrong with me? And it'll be like, you know what, girl, great.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Question at a ringing endorsement, Better Help. I think we
just lost our sponsorship.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Like, I just want to try to say it's better Help.
Can't just tell you what's wrong with you. You got
to do the work. I think Better Help would agree
with me. Oh sorry, I'm feeling so silly today.

Speaker 2 (28:54):
Wrong with that?

Speaker 1 (28:55):
All right? So whatever Laurie was dating, the well known
everyone knows about him was quarterback Troy Aikman. At first,
she was very disinterested when her friend was trying to
match her up with Troy. But he was very handsome
and successful and he did not have a drinking problem.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
Check check check.

Speaker 1 (29:15):
So they started dating. But it was a lot tabloids,
gossip magazines, morning news. She couldn't even go to the
supermarket without it being a big deal. You know, they're
like stars, Y're just like us. They eat food, you know.
And so this was a level of fame that Laurie
really didn't get as a country music star.

Speaker 2 (29:33):
Right.

Speaker 1 (29:33):
Also a big problem with them was that Troy wanted kids,
and he was eight years younger than Laurie was. So
he's dating an older woman who had two children already,
who also definitely could not have any more children. That
was really tough for him, and Laurie wrote quote, I
couldn't blame him for that. That's a big hurdle for
a man in his mid twenties. So they broke up

(29:54):
amicably less than a year later.

Speaker 2 (29:55):
Right, So Laurie's single. Now she's killing it professionally, She's
playing on TV. She's doing huge concerts alongside big names.
She was on the soundtrack for the Beverly Hillbillies movie,
which had like Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson, like a
lot of big names. She also put out a Christmas
album that had her doing duets with Andy Williams, Johnny Mathis,

(30:19):
and Tammy Wynette. She even starred in a TV pilot
about a country music singing detective called Laura Lei Lee.
The show was not picked up for a series, and
I'm half wondering if it's not just because people couldn't
pronounce Laura Lei. Lee reminds me of the rural drove

(30:43):
Laurelie Lee. Have you seen it? You sound drunk when
you talk about it.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Loy also a country music the Tectics kind of Philly.
But I don't know. Maybe maybe they do a song
after every U, or they do the song and they
reveal the culprit.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Oh yeah, in the lyrics they're like, turns out David
Justice and Jibber Jones had come down to Atlanta. They
were entering homes.

Speaker 1 (31:10):
I knew the crime all the time.

Speaker 2 (31:14):
Suspicious. You were right to be suspicious of everything.

Speaker 1 (31:17):
Yes, never trust your fellow man.

Speaker 2 (31:21):
Wow in the caston all right. Well, after dating Troy Aikman,
Laurie went in a different direction, and in nineteen ninety
four she started dating US Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee. Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:35):
So she's had a bassist, a bus driver, a footballball star,
and a country music thing of course, and then now
a senator.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (31:44):
She really does do be trying style.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
Yeah, she said in her autobiography Forever Yours Faithfully My
Love Story that Fred was great. He is so great.
Even his ex wife still liked him. She said that
she liked dating older, successful man and she felt very
secure with him. He also was very kind to her.
He pushed her to feel more confident about her talents

(32:08):
and her music and everything. He lavished her with gifts.
Obviously a very wealthy man because he's a Southern senator.
And Fred was even mulling a presidential run at that point,
and Laurie wrote quote, I would be sitting at a
glamorous party and have the flickering thought, so this is
what it's like to be a first lady. Hell. I
could handle that. Then I would say, oops, better drop

(32:31):
the hell. Beautiful country singers and they're just have you know,
foul mouth, they got no hesitation occurs in stuff.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
You know. I'm into that. But yeah, Laurie thought dating
a politician was too stifling. Sure, She wrote quote, I
cannot express myself as a pungent, pithy country singer. I
began to feel programmed to smile and be well political.
I put myself to the task could be in a
great companion to a stimulating and important man, and as

(33:04):
a result, I became boring. I mean right there, She
had to drop the hell. Yeah, right, so that makes sense. Yeah,
she said. She felt like everything she said she had
to think about the political implications. She couldn't really be herself.
And just like when she dated Troy Aikman, every time
she went out in public, it was tabloids and TV
analyzing everything she wore, every facial expression she made, which

(33:25):
I was going to say, I feel like dating a
senator is not all the way to get out of
the public eye.

Speaker 2 (33:29):
Right right, the worst direction even worse, right, she said.
I used to think I better drop the hell. Then
I realized I better drop the hell out of this relationship.

Speaker 1 (33:41):
I dropped the hymn instead. Shortly after they broke up,
she started dating another country singer and songwriter named John Randall.
John Randall the co writer of the song A Whiskey Lullaby.
We got him, We made it to everybody clap. So
in nineteen ninety six they got married, same year she

(34:03):
broke up with the senator. Yeah, so just a quickie,
quick turnaround for ol Laurie. A year later, she published
her autobiography that we mentioned earlier, Forever Yours Faithfully My
Love Story.

Speaker 2 (34:14):
Oh okay, so she's married and she puts out this
autobiography titled My Love Story. Well Entertainment Weekly gave the
book a C, saying quote Morgan offers unsavory new details
about Keith Whitley's last days and dishes the skinny on
dating Troy Aikman and Senator Fred Thompson, but she doesn't

(34:35):
do much soul searching about the four marriages she's racked
up by age thirty eight, and when she fails to
even mention her current spouse, singer John Randall, you can't
help but size him up as a future ex husband.

Speaker 1 (34:47):
Oo out.

Speaker 2 (34:49):
I think that's insane for someone to publish an autobiography
called Forever Yours Faithfully My Love Story and not mentioned
their current spouse.

Speaker 1 (34:58):
I mean that is pretty crazy.

Speaker 2 (35:00):
A little prescient maybe.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Though I don't love the judgment that I'm hearing in
not much soul searching about the four marriages she's racked
up by age thirty eight. Yeah, now, Laurie, I don't
think that she's necessarily the steadiest like partner everything, but
one of them died.

Speaker 2 (35:19):
You know.

Speaker 1 (35:19):
It's not like she's trying to jump from man to
man or something. There's just there's it's smacks of a
judgment that I don't love.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Yeah, I totally get that.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
I just wonder, you know, I have to wonder if
if it was a man who had racked up four
marriage that they would even mention it. You know, it
would just be like some dude doing his thing. Yeah,
I don't like. I just don't. I don't see them
being like he needs to really think about what he's doing.
It's never like that.

Speaker 2 (35:45):
No, you're right, I don't know. And to be fair.
On page two hundred and eighty seven out of three
hundred and one, so fourteen pages before the end, she
does mention John Randall once. Oh I am Yeah, she
does say I married a country singer name John Randall,
and it must have been really hard for him to
see me writing about all my ex husbands all the time.

(36:05):
That's it. That's the only mention of him. She didn't
like go in and add a chapter about like, but
I finally found the love of my life and I'm
so excited that that was not in there.

Speaker 1 (36:15):
You think John read it and was like, okay, am
I kicking up what you're putting down?

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Is there a sequel you're planning or Because it says
my love story and I ain't in it.

Speaker 1 (36:28):
I'm not in it, so I guess it's not my
love story.

Speaker 2 (36:32):
It says forever yours faithfully, and it's not to me
your husband. So that's interesting. Now.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
I will say, in defense of their smack of judgment,
that it is funny to call your book forever Yours faithfully,
and then we talk about all these different.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Men, right right. I do think that mostly refers to Keith,
because she's like, he died and a lot of it
was about her dealing with his death, which I understand.
But yeah, it is kind of like I love story.
But you know who doesn't factor into my love story
at all? My current husband, a guy.

Speaker 1 (37:06):
Who's ring I'm wearing well. In December of nineteen ninety six,
just a month after their wedding, Laurie and her new husband,
John performed together on the Grand Ole Opry, singing a
duet of the song by My Side. In nineteen ninety seven,
Laurie performed the National Anthem at the Daytona five hundred,
which was historic because it was also Jeff Gordon's first

(37:27):
Daytona win.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Look get that.

Speaker 1 (37:29):
She also sang let It Snow at the White House
Christmas tree lighting. Oh and in nineteen ninety eight, tabloids
claimed she had quote a wild ride in the backseat
of a limousine with President Bill Clinton.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
Oh scandalous.

Speaker 1 (37:47):
The Laurie angrily refuted this story. She said her only
interaction with Bill Clinton was in public for the tree lighting.
Uh huh, but of course makes sense to be like,
you know, our our swingin' playboy president.

Speaker 2 (37:59):
Well, I mean, Bill Clinton said in January of ninety eight,
I did not have sexual relations with that woman, so
talking about Monica Lewinsky, of course, so this had have
been right. So if he was fooling around with more
than one woman, as men who fool around with other
women often.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Do, very true.

Speaker 2 (38:18):
I'm just look, I will totally take Laurie's word for this,
but there's a part of my brain she can't convince
that something didn't happen. His little little part of the
tabloid stuck in my head. That's how they make their money.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
I just love thinking that an actual wild night with
Bill Clinton would be like he pulls out the sacks
and he's like it's time there whispers whatever, and she's
in the back of limousine like hanging out the sun roof.

Speaker 2 (38:48):
He's got fucking Baker Street blasted. Yes, she's like too wow.

Speaker 1 (38:55):
Also a side note, just a little happy story. A
month after that, in April, on Interstate sixty five in Nashville,
two dogs got loose on the highway and drivers had
to like hit the brakes to avoid them, and it
caused a huge backup that Laurie's tour bus got stuck in.
So Laurie Morgan got out of her bus, walked across

(39:16):
the highway and rescued the two dogs. Aw Hey, Lourie.
She showed up late for her rehearsal covered in mud.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
Oh worth it well. Later that year, Laurie recorded a
duet with a country singer that she knew way back when,
and he had become quite famous himself. His name was
Sammy Kershaw. And if you remember back when she was
touring with George Jones when she was twenty years old,
she had a little flaying with young Sammy Kershaw before

(39:43):
she ended up marrying the bassist Ron Gaddis Right. Well,
turns out the spark was still alive between Laurie and Sammy,
who was also very married. EU it's gonna get messy
in here. So before we get to her fifth marriage,
let's take a quick break. Prepare for all this drama
and see I would eventually lead to the song that

(40:04):
Courtney originally sent us, Whiskey Lullaby. Find out how right
after this, Well, going back, y'all to the show, Jipper
joneses here and he's coming in your door. Oh my god,
get away from this song. It's so fun.

Speaker 1 (40:25):
I'm terrified of Chipper Jones showing up of my door.
So it's the late nineties. Country music star Laurie Morgan
is married to another country singer and songwriter, John Randall.
Now the big picture of what happened next is totally true,
but the little details are from some tabloids.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
Okay, so we'll try to.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
Differentiate for you. Yeah, you can take the tabloid stuff
with the large grain of salt.

Speaker 2 (40:48):
Sure.

Speaker 1 (40:49):
So, according to Star Magazine in nineteen ninety eight, Laurie
was recording a duet with another country star, Sammy Kershaw.
Now we know Sammy and Laurie had that flaying when
they were both touring with George Jones back in seventy nine,
but she ended up marrying the bassist. Well, Sammy and
Laurie crossed paths a lot over the years, and they
kept in touch a little. But The Star says that

(41:11):
during these recording sessions they were quote flirting heavily, and
they were also going to each other's concerts. They even
did a few duets outside the studio.

Speaker 2 (41:23):
Oh that's the Star, Okay, a little honkey tonk in
the bedroom there, Okay, okay. Now. The Star also says
that John Randall started hearing these rumors, and, according to
a friend, quote he started calling Sammy's band members asking
what's going on with my wife and Sammy?

Speaker 1 (41:40):
Yikes.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Well they must have given him some detailed answers, because
on August eighth of nineteen ninety nine, the Tennesseean reported
that John Randall and Laurie Morgan were getting a divorce. Meanwhile,
Sammy Kershaw's wife, Kim, whom he had been married to
for fourteen years and had two daughters with, was none

(42:03):
too happy when news got back to her that her
husband had been fooling around with his long lost sweetheart.
On November ninth of nineteen ninety nine, she filed for
divorce from Sammy in Nashville, citing irreconcilable differences. So that's
you know, the divorce filings in both cases were true.
We don't know if, like, you know, all those about

(42:25):
all the rumors getting back to them and their angry
responses and all this stuff that's kind of being filled
in by the tabloids. But you know, some tabloid stuff
is true.

Speaker 1 (42:34):
Something I don't know is something.

Speaker 2 (42:38):
Also, according to The Star, Sammy and Kim actually had
had a great marriage. They had both been married a
couple times before, and they had both had troubles with
drugs and alcohol in their previous relationships. So now, after
fourteen years of marriage and two kids, they both really
felt like they'd settled down, their crazy days were behind them.

(42:58):
But then Laurie walked back into Sammy's life and everything changed,
and Kim allegedly was pissed.

Speaker 1 (43:08):
So Kim went after Sammy hard in the divorce, and
we did find a few details of their divorce proceedings
on rolandnote dot COM's country music database. So on day
one of their divorce trial, Kim accused Sammy of adultery
with Laurie Morgan. He fired back and said that she
had had an affair where a used car sales. What Then,

(43:30):
on day two, it was revealed that Sammy Kershaw had
paid fifty thousand dollars to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit
back in nineteen ninety seven. Oh man, we cannot find
any more info about that.

Speaker 2 (43:41):
And I know it was like trying so hard, but
it's the only record of that.

Speaker 1 (43:46):
I mean, I guess if you settle part of.

Speaker 2 (43:48):
That is the whole point is like cleaning my soft
quiet Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
My record and stuff. So anyway, so this trial just
went on for weeks, and they were a little bombshells
being dropped and thrown by each each of them and everything.
But during their divorce trial, it seems like Laurie and
John was it have a more of a quick and
clean process. CMT dot com said, quote Morgan will keep
all her own assets and Randall will keep his. The

(44:14):
two have reportedly stated that they will remain friends and
possibly work together in the future. Though it sounds like,
you know, he's all right, buye you like famy whatever.

Speaker 2 (44:23):
So by week three of Sammy and Kim's divorce trial,
he had accused Kim of excessive spending, saying that she
logged one hundred and eighty two thousand dollars in personal
expenses in nineteen ninety nine. Well damn, but Sammy could
throw whatever accusations he wanted at Kim and just nothing
was sticking, probably partly because even during their divorce trial,

(44:46):
Sammy and Laurie were not even trying to be discreet
about their relationship together. Laurie even opened a restaurant called
Laurie Morgan's Spicy Hot Chicken Coop, which had Sammy Kershaw's
potato salad on the menu.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (45:01):
At one point, Kim Kershaw dropped this bombshell on the court.
She testified that Laurie Morgan admitted to her that she
had an affair with Sammy back in nineteen ninety three. Now,
Sammy would have been still married to Kim at that
point because they got married in the mid eighties. But

(45:22):
if we play back the tape from earlier in this podcast,
we know that in nineteen ninety three, Laurie was feeling
unhappy with her bus driver husband, Brad Thompson, and divorced
him for sixty five thousand dollars and a pickup truck.
So maybe that affair had something to do with what
ultimately broke up Laurie and Brad or came about because

(45:45):
Laurie and Brad were already on the rocks, right, but
either way kind of adds a new piece of info
to that story.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Very true.

Speaker 2 (45:54):
Well.

Speaker 1 (45:54):
In April of two thousand and one, Sammy and Kim
Kershaw's divorce was finalized. The judge head zero sympathy for
sam He's like you are wild annowed Sammy, So he
was ordered to pay thirty five thousand dollars for Kim's
legal fees, four thousand dollars a month in alimony, and
six thousand, five hundred dollars a month in child support.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
Right.

Speaker 1 (46:16):
Kim also received primary custody of the kids, and the
judge said, quote.

Speaker 5 (46:21):
Mister Kershaw's marital misconduct has been open and notorious, with
absolutely no discretion being used to protect his wife and
children from information concerning his affair.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
With Miss Lori Morgan.

Speaker 2 (46:34):
Sorry, I love this Tennessee judge. Should I give more
this Sam Eagle from Tennessee? Oh no, it's.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
A powdered wig that he puts on to make his judgment.

Speaker 2 (46:53):
Country Bumpkins.

Speaker 1 (46:54):
He was sent there as from the city.

Speaker 2 (46:57):
From the city for being for being two by the book,
he couldn't he couldn't work with the mobsters that were
running you know, the city Seattle, where he had previously
been a judge, and they were like, I'm sending you
to Nashville. Like, no, fine, I'll bring my brand of
justice to Nashville. Let's see how it works down there.

Speaker 1 (47:19):
Call me barrister.

Speaker 2 (47:23):
That British.

Speaker 1 (47:28):
Well, anyway, you might wonder, you know, did Sammy take
that to heart, this judge being like hella judgmental?

Speaker 2 (47:37):
He was, maybe like judgmental.

Speaker 1 (47:40):
That judge really pegged me I should maybe act a
little more discretion and humility, maybe act like a gentleman. Nope,
because eleven days after the divorce was finalized, he and
Laurie went on Live with Regis and Kelly to announce
their engagement. I swear they are like why people to
get mad at them?

Speaker 2 (48:01):
Right, Like it's not even like, well they got engaged.
Eleven days later, they went on the biggest live morning
talk show in the world to tell literally everyone, they will, yes,
screw our previous marriages. We're starting this one now.

Speaker 1 (48:15):
First it was chicken and potato salad. Now it's heart
and soul. So on September twenty ninth, two thousand and one,
they got married in Nashville.

Speaker 2 (48:24):
Now on Larry King, Laurie did an interview and she said,
quote from the first time I met Sammy, there was
a traction there. Nothing happened, and some twenty years later
we were both in marriages and we decided to get
out of those marriages to pursue the love that we
felt for each other. It was tough on our family,
our children and our fans. But you know, you only

(48:45):
live once, which I mean, you know, there's something to that,
and sort of like, why am I, for the sake
of etiquette gonna delay the thing that brings me happiness?

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Right?

Speaker 2 (49:00):
Something there? But also you got to consider who you
are hurting, right, and you can't always just pursue the
thing that you want the most deeply when you've got
to consider other people's feelings and well being as well.

Speaker 1 (49:11):
But you know, well, and this might be where you know,
you want some of that self analysis to come in,
get her to think to herself, you know, my heart
is a little fickle. Yeah, maybe I don't need to
marry every man. We could just stay for a.

Speaker 2 (49:25):
While and maybe you know, when there's when I'm married
to someone and I'm attracted to someone else, I sort
of ride that out, you know, and try to get
through it and see what's going on with Yeah, I mean,
who knows what was going on?

Speaker 1 (49:39):
Mind or heart hurt wants what it wants and so on.

Speaker 2 (49:44):
But a year into the marriage, things apparently got a
little rocky again. That fickle heart reared its head because
Laurie and Sammy had both filed restraining orders against each other.
She told Larry King in this interview, which was after
or they'd reconciled, that this had come from pressure from
outside forces who quote didn't want us to succeed. They

(50:07):
were being played against each other by either people who
you know, who were angry about how their previous divorces
went down, or by the tabloids who were seeking drama.
She said, quote we fell for it. We took it
out on each other, and one fight led to another
and it became extremely, extremely violent. It was very uncalled for.

(50:28):
Of this violence. Can only find out that in court.
Sammy is the one who claimed that Laurie assaulted him.
But she did say that neither of them were doing
any drugs or drinking. She said, neither of them do
because they both had bad histories with it. It was
just a lot of built up frustration and hot heads
and you know, tempers and all that. But when she

(50:50):
came back later to pack up some of her stuff,
you know, they saw each other. They started to talk.
They realized that they had already gone through so much
drama just to be together, that they must really matter
to each other and they should try and work this out.
So they talked for a while and it seemed like
things were going to be okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (51:08):
But even though they were later seen acting quote unquote
lovey dovey, I guess there were a lot of PDA
going on in Hot Chicken, Cooper.

Speaker 2 (51:17):
Probably trying to undo all those tabloid headlines.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
Yeah, so yeah, even so they had problem. Yeah, in
two thousand and five, the Hot Chicken restaurant closed, you
know seven Sammy filed for bankruptcy, and later that year
he announced his candidacy as a Republican for Lieutenant governor
of Louisiana. Oh and we know, LORI, you know, don't
like Dayton politicians.

Speaker 2 (51:39):
Right, you know, nice like I tried that.

Speaker 1 (51:41):
By the way, he lost. Yeah, he did not win
that win.

Speaker 2 (51:45):
Also weird that he like declared bankruptcy and was like
I know how to get back on my feet with
money run for politics, which just kind of shows you
what her political run will do for your financial situation.

Speaker 1 (51:57):
That's true, But I was about to say, it's very
expensive to run a president right, I mean, not even presidential,
any any office. A race for any office is pretty pricey. Yeah,
so it's like you kind of have to have some
of your own money too.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Well, that's one thinking is this was a play against
the system. This is one of those like I'm a
declare bankruptcy so that I have I can debt free
run for office, and in running for office, I can
raise money, I can sell books, whatever it is he did,
because a lot of people walk away from a run
with more money than they started with, despite having spent

(52:29):
millions of dollars on the run. There's a big problem
with money in the political system, is all I'm saying here.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
You're so right. So on top of all that, even
their respective crowds couldn't get along because Lori said she
was quote unquote laid back music, kind of like Tammy Wynette,
you know, in that vein. Sammy meanwhile, was more like
southern rock, like a Leonard Skinnard. Okay, so they're like,
we can't even tour together because their fans didn't mix,

(52:56):
they didn't share interest in the others music or whatever.
So it was just a lot of problems like that,
and in August of that year, Sammy and Laurie legally separated.
By October, LORII filed for divorce. The next year, some
trust sued Laurie Morgan for three hundred and twenty seven
thousand dollars in unpaid debt, So then she filed for

(53:18):
bankruptcy in two thousand and eight, citing between one and
ten million dollars in debt, which it's like, that's a
huge disparity.

Speaker 2 (53:26):
There's a big difference between one and two million dollars.
In fact, there's a million dollar difference between those two numbers.

Speaker 1 (53:33):
I think, I see what your problem is is that
you don't be tracked.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
She's like, I don't know, one million, ten million, it's
all the same.

Speaker 1 (53:40):
No, it isn't it's it's not the same very much,
not so big shock. Laurie was never good with money.
She told the Boot in twenty sixteen that her bankruptcy
was because, quote, she didn't watch her own money or
audit her accountant, right that is a trap.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
And if you're so rich that you.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
Have so many people looking after your money, yeah, look
after them right.

Speaker 2 (54:01):
That was a comment in one of these articles too,
that it's like this is not uncommon for celebrities who
suddenly have a lot of money and don't really know
how to handle it. So they have people do and
they just assume all their bills are getting paid. They
just assume everything's being handled and then they get a
letter one day that's like, hey, it hadn't been handled.

Speaker 1 (54:18):
Right, look at Shakira, right?

Speaker 2 (54:20):
Was not?

Speaker 1 (54:21):
Her argument was that her tax people were doing her taxes.

Speaker 2 (54:25):
Yeah, so that's pretty much. The most ridiculous of Lori
Morgan's love life is those those first five husbands number five,
especially that whole just tabloid drama, divorce, cheating everything. Afterwards,
she did get married one more time to Randy White,
a businessman. That was in twenty ten, and they seem

(54:45):
to still be married happily today. Oh yeah, she's got
an active Facebook page where she almost exclusively posts dog memes,
but she does have pictures of the two of them
on a beach and stuff, and you know, seeming to
be doing okay, I guess she does little tours. She
was like, I'm playing this music hall and Niagara Falls
and stuff like that. So I guess she's still playing

(55:07):
a little bit. So that's that's Laurie and her ridiculous
love life but ridiculous romance. Some might even say, what
But now we can finally loop back to Courtney's original
Instagram message and the song Whiskey Lullaby that set us
off on this tangent in the first place. Now that

(55:29):
we know how Laurie and John's divorce went down, we
can understand why afterwards John was kind of a wreck. Right.
I mean, his wife, who'd never even mentioned him in
her autobiography about the loves of her life, right, was
off cheating on him with her you know, effectively teenage sweetheart.

Speaker 1 (55:46):
She's in hot chicken with someone else.

Speaker 2 (55:49):
Right. So within days of the divorce, John also lost
a record deal and a songwriting contract, according to an
article on American Songwriter dot com. So things a really
low point in John's life, and he started drinking heavily
after this, and he went back to a lot of
his worst habits. Just having a really hard time and

(56:10):
seeing him in this state. Apparently, his manager said to
him quote, hey man, every now and then you got
to put a bottle to your head and pull the trigger.
And John was like, uh shit, I got to write
that down for later, which also like imagine walking in

(56:30):
on your friend who's like drunk passed out and being like, yeah,
sometimes you gotta do that. I mean, it's not exactly
what he needed to hear.

Speaker 1 (56:38):
Especially your manager, should you not be like, hey man,
let's clean get you cleaned up. You know what I'm saying,
Like we'll go on a little sabbatical or something. Get
your head right.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
You wucking guy's face down of the toilet, three whiskey
bottles empty around him, and you're just like, yep, it happens.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Go on a bender until you.

Speaker 2 (56:56):
Die there some of us don't come back.

Speaker 1 (57:00):
Geez, you're a terrible manager, right I Oh. John was like,
I'm going to get any manager who cares if I
liver ORed.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
I Well.

Speaker 1 (57:07):
John cleaned himself up, got back to work, and he
paired up with songwriter Bill Anderson to try and put
a song together. Now Anderson had his own idea for
a song called Midnight Cigarette.

Speaker 2 (57:18):
Oh no, that's country.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
That is that is very country sound. He said, quote
can you imagine a cigarette just sitting on an ash
tray at midnight, nobody's smoking it or paying it any attention,
and it just burned out. And he kind of likens
that to a relationship where you don't hit a wall
or anything. It just sort of goes away, kind of pizzles.

Speaker 2 (57:38):
Right.

Speaker 1 (57:38):
We've all had one of them. Yeah, yeah, Like neither
of us are trying to say it, but we both know.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
I had one where we're like never We never really
broke up, just kind of left one day. It was like,
all right, I guess I'll wow see you later. And
so I guess technically I'm still dating that person, babe. Sorry,
we unbelieve the ball.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
I'll text full time.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
I'll text her and be like, hey, we need to
make this official. You have multiple children, we should break up.

Speaker 1 (58:12):
We should probably break up now. She's like, who is
this no offense?

Speaker 2 (58:19):
Damn wow. I actually would take a lot of offense
if she said that to me.

Speaker 1 (58:24):
That would be very upset. So anyway, John loved the
idea for this song, and he said, quote, yeah, well
I put the bottle to my head and pulled the
trigger a few times. Oh, And Bill was like, for
good midnight cigarette. Now that's a line.

Speaker 2 (58:39):
You know who told you that, some supportive friend, I hope.

Speaker 1 (58:47):
When they were telling you to get yourself clean. But
actually both lines ended up going into the song that
they wrote together, which is Whiskey Lullaby. So y'all, I
don't think we can legally play it for you. I
do think we can go on down to a poetry
corner and give a read of a few of these
here lyrics.

Speaker 2 (59:08):
She pooed him out like the burning end of a
midnight cigarette. She broke his heart. He spent his whole
life trying to forget. We watched him drink his pain
away little at a time, but he never could get
drunk enough to get her off his mind until the night.

Speaker 1 (59:25):
He put that bottle to his head and pulled the
trigger and finally drank away her memory. Life is short,
but this time it was bigger than the strength he
had to get up off his knees. We found him
with his face down in the pillow, with a note
that said I'll love her till I die. And when
we buried him beneath the willow, the angels sang a

(59:49):
whiskey lullaby.

Speaker 2 (59:52):
There you have it, folks whiskey lullabye, midnight cigarette, midnight
cigarette and bottled of his head and pulled the tree,
which like, oh, it's clever. But the more I hear it,
I'm like, that's stupid, that's so rude. I don't mean that.
It's fine. A lot of people love that song. It's
a very popular song. Our dear listener, Courtney may Klaus,

(01:00:16):
I assume loves that song. She knew it well enough
to make the link between the willow trees lines. I'll
tell you. We're obviously history fans, and we love going
to ancient China and France and you know, getting all
these medieval love stories and stuff like that. It's a
lot of fun. So it's nice to dive into something

(01:00:37):
that I think we're really truly unfamiliar with once in
a while, just like the country music scene, despite the
fact that we kind of I mean, Atlanta's a bit
of a bubble, but we are certainly surrounded by a
lot of country music around, yeah, and I think we
just kind of tune it out generally, So it's cool
to get into this story and learn a different, different
part of the world. Oh side note, Senator Fred Thompson

(01:01:01):
who Laurie dated is an exact replica of Kelsey Grammar.
What these guys look? Look him up? Okay, look, I
want you to google Fred Thompson right now and give
me your immediate reaction. Oh my god, yeah right. I
mean I'm not the first to say so. If you
scroll down, there's surely like four pages that show pictures.

(01:01:22):
They're like Kelsey Grammer, He's just playing a movie or something.

Speaker 1 (01:01:26):
Actually. People also ask why did Fred Thompson leave Law
and Order? Did he have something?

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Maybe that's a different fred Thompson.

Speaker 1 (01:01:36):
That's funny. It does say he was an actor, so
maybe he was on Law and Order.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
He sure was. In the final months of his US
Senate term. In two thousand and two, fred Thompson joined
the cast of Law and Order, Wow, starring as a
district attorney. Well, anyway, it was a really cool story
to just stumble across. I love those. Let me look
up this song. Ah, there's nothing here. Wait a minute,
there's a little bit here. Oh my god, there's six marriages. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:02:02):
My question is why Mary. I feel like after the
third or fourth time, I'd be like, you know, well,
let's just date for a while, you know, like why
would you want to tie the net so quick?

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I think for some people, especially older generations, there's this
sort of idea that like, that's exclusively why you date
someone is to marry them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
That's true.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
And if after a couple of months things are going well,
you're like, all right, well, then things are going well,
let's get married and then we'll have kids together. And
that's why. Also, I think a lot of people older
generations who got married a lot of and this came
from many years of marriage wasn't necessity for comfort, which
I totally understand. But a lot of people will get
married quickly and then realize that they're not compatible or

(01:02:48):
they don't like each other, because sometimes it takes a
while to figure that out. So then you got these
sort of rotten marriages, these grumpy old people who don't
like each other, or divorce or whatever happen happens, which
is why, of course we waited eight years before we
got married, just to be ex sure. But again I
still feel like that was like holding our noses and

(01:03:11):
jumping in so but I think it's so far it's
worked out pretty well.

Speaker 1 (01:03:14):
It's good to hear.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Yeah, yeah, I guess you're right.

Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
I don't know, there is there is something different about
people's mindset today, I guess about a relationship, it's like
it's totally fine too, or we even did Kurt Russell
and goldiehun who've never chosen to get married, and they've had,
you know, more commitment than Laurie had with many of
her actual marriages. And as we've seen several people who

(01:03:37):
married multiple times, like Ron Shephard what's his name, the
most married man or whatever? Oh yeah, but anyway, I
just think it's funny to have so many failed marriages
and then just keep doing it. Like I feel like
at some point, if it were me, I'd be like,
you know what, let's just you know what, we're just
gonna hold off, Like I don't get married again, Like
we're together for at least a year or two before

(01:03:59):
right thing goes down. Especially with some of them, are
like there's literally a couple months between it is in
the divorce and the marriage.

Speaker 2 (01:04:07):
To me, I'm like, in her heart and mind, when
you know divorce is a fairly ready option, what is
the difference between that and just long term dating?

Speaker 1 (01:04:19):
Right?

Speaker 2 (01:04:20):
Right? I mean we're in a committed relationship for two
years to me, the only difference between that and long
term dating is that you had a ceremony to say
we're in this committed relationship and also you said in
your vows till death do us part or something along
those lines, and then did not really think that because

(01:04:41):
like till death or discomfort or awkwardness or I find
somebody better, you know. It kind of like yeah, So
to me, it's just like you all you did was
technically all you did was date these people. You just
made it legally official.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
That, which I guess is the weird party because I'm
it's not like you're in it for their money or something.
You have all your own shit going on, so you're
actually putting your own self in danger by marrying this
bus driver or this one whoever, And it just seems
like an odd choice, I guess. But you know whatever,
she's happy now, so good for you, Laura.

Speaker 2 (01:05:17):
And she you know, a life full of adventures and
for her that was you know, I think she was.
It sounds like she was more often happy than not,
and that she was excited each time that she got
into one of these relationships. They she usually dated people
for a fairly long time slash married them for a
couple of years at least. It wasn't like, you know,

(01:05:38):
bouncing one of the next all the time. So I
don't know. It's certainly not my cup of tea. And
I don't think it was only anyone was happy to
get divorced so many times.

Speaker 1 (01:05:48):
Yeah, and I'm not trying to say she should stay
with someone she didn't get into. I must rather be
a multiple divorce than be married to the wrong person.

Speaker 2 (01:05:56):
Right, but pump the brakes on getting married.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
But the marriage exactly just like just hang on on
that part.

Speaker 2 (01:06:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:06:03):
Well, I mean, I am very glad that we got
this message from Courtney May because this was a fun,
like a kind of clib messy dramas.

Speaker 2 (01:06:11):
Yeah, a little bit of tabloid episode, which we don't
get to do too often.

Speaker 1 (01:06:13):
Way, But as you say in the country music world,
which is very unknown.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
To men, also just goes to show that any message
you send us could turn into something very valuable. So please.

Speaker 1 (01:06:23):
You might not even think so if you're.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Just like man, I have the dumbest thought about their episode,
but I don't you know what, they won't even care.
We will, we will. It might change our lives forever,
So please.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
We might talk about it for an hour and a half.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
Yes, So do please send us your thoughts, your feelings,
your ideas, anything that might have crossed your mind while
you were listening to this episode. Tell us if you've
been married and divorced several times and sort of how
you know your take on everything we've been talking about here.
If we're absolutely have no idea what we're talking about,

(01:06:57):
or if we're spot on, you know, I love to
hear it. Either way, shoot us an email at ridic
Romance at gmail dot.

Speaker 1 (01:07:02):
Com right or we're on Instagram. I'm at Dynamite Boone.

Speaker 2 (01:07:04):
And I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli and.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
The show is at ridic Romance.

Speaker 2 (01:07:09):
Thank you so much for tuning in with us today.
Thanks again, Courtney and y'all take a take, take it,
take it, take it good, take it, have it fun,
have it fun there at all fun and take watch
out for Chipper Jones and David Justice. Don't let them
into your homes if you see them on your right cameras.

Speaker 1 (01:07:24):
Pretend not to be home.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
All right, We'll see y'all next time.

Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
Love you by all right, So long, friends, it's time
to go. Thanks for listening to our show tell your
friends

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
David's uncles and dance to listen to our show Ridiculous
well Nance