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From 1989 to 2015, country music superstar Reba McEntire was married to her former bandmate and manager Narvel Blackstock. And while 26 years is certainly an impressive run, especially in the world of often brief celebrity marriages, the sad truth about McEntire’s marriage to Blackstock is that there were always some telltale signs it was never going to last.

For starters, McEntire’s relationship with Blackstock got off on kind of an awkward foot, and the “Fancy” singer found herself stuck in a bit of a love triangle with Blackstock and her first husband, Charlie Battles, to whom she was married from 1976 to 1987. In her 1995 autobiography “Reba: My Story,” McEntire recalled that, being a married woman, she had no interest in Blackstock when they first met in 1980. Over time, though, McEntire’s relationship with Battles began to break down, while Blackstock became far more involved in the country star’s life and career.

Blackstock offered his own perspective on the matter in McEntire’s book. “It was awkward because Charlie and I had been buddies,” he wrote. However, McEntire herself maintained that her decision to end things with Battles had nothing to do with anything that may have been blossoming between her and Blackstock. “I had to tell Narvel straight out, ‘This is what I wanted to do with my life, for myself. I didn’t divorce Charlie because of you,'” the singer explained in her memoir. Still, McEntire and Blackstock’s romance undeniably had a complicated beginning, which clearly weighed on him for a time.

Reba McEntire and Narvel Blackstock mixed business with romance

Another sign Reba McEntire and Narvel Blackstock’s marriage wasn’t necessarily built to last was the fact that, as previously mentioned, Blackstock was McEntire’s manager and business partner in addition to being her spouse. Just about anyone who has ever had to navigate a workplace romance will tell you that it can be very difficult to balance personal feelings with professional responsibilities. And nearly a decade after her divorce from Blackstock, McEntire confessed that romance often took a backseat to business over the course of their decades-long relationship.

“I think it works for some people — they can be married, or have a relationship, and work together. Our work was all the time,” McEntire said on “The Drew Barrymore Show” in 2024, elaborating, “Our marriage was 26 years. We started out working together in the band — he was part of the band, and then became my manager later on, then my husband. But it was a situation of– it was always business. Whether we were getting ready in the morning, pillow talk, whatever. But it was business.”

Fortunately, McEntire seems to have found that all-important balance with new beau Rex Linn. Linn and McEntire have made it clear that they love working together — though, to be fair, their professional relationship is simply that of TV co-stars, as opposed to the manager-client relationship McEntire had with her ex-husband. “He’s wonderful, helps me a lot,” McEntire said of Linn in a May 2024 interview with Extra TV.