Back in the early 80’s, Tanya Tucker and Glen Campbell had a whirlwind romance.
But it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows…
The country legend has been open in admitting that they fought, broke and up fought some more, and drugs and alcohol certainly had a lot to do with that. At the time, Tucker was just 22 years old, and Campbell, who was 22 years her senior, was around 44.
For all of those reasons and more, the pair was ultimately together for just around a year give or take a couple months, and were actually engaged briefly in 1981. Campbell even threw his girlfriend a $57,000 party in LA for her 22nd birthday…
Tucker has also stated before that he was the love of her life, and in an interview with Dan Rather and AXS TV in 2016, she stood by that, saying that she was simply too young to handle that sort of relationship at the time.
She also explained that she had a part in their explosive fights, and a few years after the broke up, she slapped him (figuratively) with a $3 million lawsuit claiming he knocked out two of her front teeth during one particularly bad fight (he denied it)… so yeah, things were bad and it definitely doesn’t sound like it was all good a lot of the time.
But still to this day, she says Campbell was the love of her life, but she was just too young to fully recognize it:
“I will have to take a lot of that. I will have to say that I was very young, and knew how to push the buttons and I thought there was more fish in the sea.
But looking back, I think sometimes you get the love of your life when you’re too young and you don’t know how to handle it. So I think that was me. I was trying to help him get off drugs, and when I was trying to help him, I got off.
It was that time, during the 80’s, everybody was doing it… in Hollywood, it was a party favor. But I know how he is when he’s straight, and you can’t find a better person.”
Around that time, Tanya was in between record deals, and not long after they broke up, her dad came back to help her move from California back to Nashville.
Because of all the bad press she had gotten due to her wild child, partying ways (she was only in her early 20’s and already a very successful artist), her dad was honest when he told her she’d have a hard time getting resigned with her current reputation.
She ultimately inked a deal with Capitol Records, and went on to put out a string of hits in “One Love At A Time,” “Just Another Love,” which became her first #1 in the U.S. since 1976, and also “I Won’t Take Less Than Your Love,” which also went #1.
Campbell and Tucker released music together, played shows together and were even nominated for a Grammy in the Best Country Vocal Performance by a Duo or Group category for their duet “Dream Lover” in 1981. Like I said, it was a whirlwind romance, and you have to imagine in another life, they might’ve actually worked out. Tucker clearly still loves him after all these years, which is pretty special in and of itself.
Of course, Campbell sadly passed away in August of 2017 after a six-year struggle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Following his death, Tanya released a song called “Forever Loving You,” which drew some criticism because it was released on the eve of Campbell’s funeral with some claiming it was exploitative. Still, the song is a sweet sentiment to the great love of her life, full of cool photos of them together and the happy times they shared many decades ago.
Check it out:
“Dream Lover”
And the AXS interview:
