What a story.
Most of her fans know that Miranda Lambert had a very unique childhood, because her parents, Rick and Bev Lambert, owned a private investigation company for a lot of her youth. They would often take in women who were in bad situations, and it’s subject matter Miranda has used in a lot of her music.
I’ve often heard her talk about all of the people she met and left an impression on her at a young age, but I had never heard this story before…
In an extensive interview with People, Lauren Burns told the story of being kidnapped by her father when she was just 7-years-old. Lauren was born and raised in Dallas, Texas, and her parents, Cathy Mahone and Ali Bayan, got divorced when she was just six weeks old.
Kidnapped And Taken To Jordan
She says that she grew up with her mom having full custody, but she saw her dad whenever she wanted. He got remarried had more children, and Lauren says everything was good. On Halloween weekend in 1987, Ali was supposed to take Lauren trick-or-treating, and when he pulled up at her mom’s house, she thought it was odd that her stepmom and other siblings weren’t there.
He told her they were going on a surprise vacation, and he ended up abducting her, fleeing the United States for his native Jordan. Lauren says there were no warning signs or red flags. Of course, she says that no little girl would ever think of their father doing something like that:
“No little girl ever would think that their father would do anything to harm them.”
Ali was supposed to take Lauren to school on Monday after their holiday weekend, and her mom quickly learned that she hadn’t gone to school, and she managed to figure out that they were on a flight to Jordan.
Cathy called the one man she knew could help, Rick Lambert, right away, which set off a long journey of trying to get Lauren back. She got enrolled in school, where she had to go to classes where everyone spoke Arabic, and she was forced to tell her mom that she was happy whenever they spoke on the phone.
Cathy, Lauren’s mom, had been friends with Rick and Bev before all of this happened, even before she and Ali got married. Rick is a former Dallas police officer who ran a private detective agency with Bev, and they did everything they could to help Cathy get her daughter back:
“They walked every bit of this with us.”
Unfortunately, there was nothing the U.S. government could do because they had no extradition agreement with Jordan, so Rick and Bev moved in with Cathy and spent a ton of time trying to come up with a plan, Lauren says:
“They moved in with my mom, and they were with her day and night trying to figure out a way to get me back from Jordan, calling all their connections, and reaching out to everyone they could think of, even people they didn’t know.”
Eventually, Cathy got in contact with North Carolina-based security firm made up of other retired special-operations members, and she spent $80,000 to get a four-man team to Jordan to find Lauren. They spent a month there trying to track her down, and by a stroke of fate, they managed to figure out where her school bus stopped and got her off the bus at one of the stops.
Cathy was in disguise, as she had to be there, and the group managed to cross the Israeli border minutes before Jordanian authorities tracked them down. It’s truly an incredible story, and once they got back to the United States, the ordeal was far from over.
Moving In With The Lamberts
They had to change their last name and live in hiding, essentially, and as she got older and became a teenager, Lauren was going through a lot, obviously dealing with a lot of emotions because of that traumatic experience.
Bev Lambert wanted Lauren to come live with their family, at their farmhouse in rural Lindale, Texas, and Lauren lived with the Lambert’s in the house that Miranda famously sings about in “The House That Built Me.” The two girls shared a bedroom for the next two years, and Lauren says Miranda is like a sister to her:
“She’s always been like a little sister to me. She’s got the biggest heart, just like her parents.”
In the years before Burns’ stepfather came into her life when Mahone remarried, she credits Rick with being a father figure to her, saying he was “the dad I needed,” and Miranda and her brother, Luke, were happy to share him with her:
“Rick Lambert was the dad I needed before my stepdad came into my life. Every Father’s Day, I would write Rick a Father’s Day card. He actually walked me across the football field when I was homecoming football sweetheart, because he was a dad to me.
And Miranda and her brother Luke were always willing to share their dad with me because that was just part of their family growing up.”
Eventually, Ali showed up again, somehow finding Lauren’s rural home in Texas despite years of them hiding, and she finally decided to confront him. She sat down and had an honest conversation about how much he took from her as a young girl, and she recalled him having no idea how deeply the situation had affected her and would never take responsibility for it.
Lauren now lives close to her mom in San Antonio, Texas, where she has a husband and children of her own now, and she works as a physical therapist. She says she’s finally been able to forgive her father.
Miranda calls Lauren one of the bravest people she knows, and the whole experience “impacted [her] family” very deeply. She noted how Lauren has come out stronger because of all of it, and she’s now using her story to help others:
“One of the bravest people I know… I was just a little girl when Lauren was taken… but I remember how deeply it impacted our family. I’ve watched her walk through pain and come out stronger, using her voice to help others find hope.”
Lauren’s new book, which focuses on her journey and all she experienced called “Stolen: A True Story — Kidnapped, Rescued, Redeemed,” is out now.
It’s really a wild story, it’s honestly hard to believe it’s real, and the Lambert’s are some very impressive people, as are Lauren and her mom. They go into a ton of detail in the video below, and I highly recommend taking some time to watch it:
I need to leave you with this now…
“The House That Built Me”
