Lainey in love.
Lainey Wilson is engaged to her longtime boyfriend, now-fiancé, Devlin “Duck” Hodges, who proposed last week at a gorgeous home that might look familiar, because it’s the former home of the late, great George Jones.
It looked spectacular, yet simple and beautiful, and oh my goodness… Lainey’s ring is absolutely stunning:
Lainey made several public comments about wanting to get engaged last year, so I think it’s been in the works for a while now and they seem like a great couple, clearly very in love, and I can’t wait to see the wedding and obviously, what Lainey wears.
The two have actually been dating for four years now, which some fans might be surprised to know, because she kept it very private for a couple of years. They started dating in 2021, after being set up through mutual friends in Nashville. In interview with People in 2023, Lainey opened up about her relationship and why she decided to keep it so low-key, saying she needed to make sure the former NFL player was in it “for the right reasons.”
“I said, ‘We gonna see if you’re in it for the right reasons.’ Turns out, he is. Somebody said how funny it was watching him high-five all of my artist friends at the ACMs, and I said, ‘Those are his friends!’”
Fair enough… doing what she does, it totally makes sense, and I think it’s smart that she went about it that way. Lainey and Duck made their official debut in 2023 at the ACM Awards.
On their first date, though, they went somewhere much less fancy, to a place that had free beer and wine in the evenings, and Lainey knew it would work because she could obviously tell he liked to “ball on a budget”:
“We went to this old place called Silverados, and it had free beer and wine from 5 to 10 p.m. I was like, ‘This boy likes to ball on a budget too. This is gonna work out.’”
She also told People that he supports her country music dreams… but sometimes while she’s gone performing, he’ll hang out with some of her buddies like Hardy, Luke Combs and Morgan Wallen:
“Duck is the kind of dude who high-fives me on the way in the door and on the way out and says, ‘Go get it.’ He knows how important this dream is to me.
He’ll FaceTime me, and he’ll be with HARDY and Morgan and Luke, and I’m like, ‘Stop stealing all my buddies.’ They’ll always be out golfing and drinking a beer. I don’t have to convince anybody to like him. He’s a very lovable person.”
In all seriousness, Lainey says she’s “grateful” for him, adding that she’s finally able to write love songs like “4X4XU” because of her relationship with Duck, which is really special and sweet:
“I was never really able to write love songs, because I don’t know if I had actually felt it, but I’m writing me some love songs now. I’m grateful for him.”
And speaking of “4X4XU,” Lainey just scored her eighth career #1 song at country radio with that song, which is featured on her 2024 Whirlwind album. You couldn’t dream it up any better…
“4X4XU”
