Loretta Lynn ‘married’ Kid Rock over joke: A look at her love story mired in abuse, infidelity with Doolittle
Country music icon Loretta Lynn took her fans by surprise over the weekend by announcing a pretend marriage to her dear friend and musician Kid Rock. Loretta, along with her family and close friends, had gathered to watch her son Ernest and his wife, Crystal, renew their vows.
The 88-year-old singer shared a series of pictures on her personal Instagram account on Sunday, August 30, in which she’s seen wearing a veil, while Rock is on his knees with his hand in hers. Although the whole act came across as pretty real, Loretta and her granddaughter, Tayla Lynn, confirmed through their respective social media posts that the wedding was only a joke calling it “hillbilly soirée”. While Lynn and Rock were happy “like school kids” about their pretend marriage, Loretta’s marriage to her former husband and country music figure, Doolittle Lynn, whose original name was Oliver Lynn, saw a lot of heartaches.
Loretta was only 15 when she married Doolittle who was 21 at that time. Although he supported her career majorly and helped her pave her way to stardom, their marriage was embroiled in one too many issues, from "philandering" to "abuse". Loretta has herself admitted to having been sent to her parents’ home when she was pregnant with their first child, due to his alleged interest in other women, according to Biography.com. Loretta even revealed that she and Doolittle were allegedly involved in a lot of physical fights. “Every time Doo smacked me, he got smacked twice,” she told in an interview with Esquire. Reportedly, she further added, “I heard teeth hittin' the floor and thought, 'Ooh, I'm dead. He not gonna put up with this.' But he laughed."
The couple went on to have six children together, but their relationship continued to remain parched. In one of her conversations with Nashville Scene, Loretta has recollected her love-hate moments with her former husband. She says, “I never knew what I was comin’ home to. I didn’t know if I was comin’ home to fightin’ or what. It was pretty rough. Doo drank a lot. There was a lot of times I’d have rather not come home. And if it hadn’t have been for my babies I wouldn’t have.” Despite all the issues in their marriage, Loretta stood by Doolittle until his last breath. He underwent heart surgery in 1992. Due to complications from diabetes both his legs had to be amputated. Loretta put her career on hold to take care of her husband until he passed away in 1996.
Dealing with her husband’s passing was harder for the singer. She explained in an interview, “Three days after my husband died, I left Hurricane Mills and come to Nashville. After bein’ here awhile, I said to a friend of mine, ‘It seems like I been here a couple of months already.’ And she said, ‘You been here a year.’ That’s when I knew I’d flipped out,” she says, laughing. “Of course I wasn’t gonna admit it to anyone, but that’s when I knew I’d lost track of time.” Her daughter Patsy told Rolling Stone in 2004 that her mother hadn't accepted her father’s loss completely. Meanwhile, Loretta admitted in her Time Out interview, “I think I see him everywhere I'm at, and everything at home and everywhere I'm goin'."