This week, country superstar Reba McEntire returns to the screen as “loosecannon” traveling circuit judge Kim Wheeler in a new Lifetime movie, RebaMcEntire ‘s The Hammer — and also returning, by McEntire’s side, is heroffscreen love interest, Rex Linn. McEntire and Linn, who started dating in2020 but with way back in 1991 when they co-starred in one of McEntire’s firstTV projects, The Gambler Returns with Kenny Rogers have also worked togetherin Young Sheldon and BigSky. But McEntire seems especially delighted toshare screentime with Linn’s The Hammer character, Bart Crawford, describedin a Lifetime press release as “a mysterious cowboy with unknown motives.”
“Well, I thought it was really neat that he made a very handsome mysteriouscowboy, too,” McEntire tells Yahoo Entertainment with a sly, flirty smirk.
The natural, easy chemistry between McEntire and Linn is readily apparent in> all of them Hammer scenes. McEntire reveals that she was “a little rusty> on my acting” before shooting the film, and says Linn “helped me> tremendously. … By the time we got to do our scenes together, it was just> like talking to each other. I love working with Rex. He’s a great actor, and> I just get the biggest kick out of the way he chooses to do a scene and then> change it up and do it some other way. I’ve learned a lot from him.”
The real-life, late-in-life love story between McEntire and Linn truly is thestuff of Lifetime movies. While McEntire admits that when she met Linn 32years ago — not long after she’d married her second husband, Narvel Blackstock— no sparks flew, they “just kept the friendship. And timing is everything,and everything happens for a reason.”
When McEntire shot an appearance on Linn’s show Young Sheldon in January2020, about four years after her 26-year marriage to Blackstock had ended, sheand Linn reconnected and went out for dinner, although she “didn’t know thenthat it was a date.” In fact, when Linn first asked her out, she declined. “Isaid, ‘Can I take a rain check?’ I’d had a long day, and I was exhausted.” Sheeventually met up with Linn, Young Sheldon actress Melissa Peterman(McEntire’s former Reba sitcom costar and current The Hammer castmate),and her tour manager, Marne McLyman, at a restaurant in Sherman Oaks, Calif.
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“I left [McLyman] out at the valet station; I just had to get in and seeRex. And, you know, Melissa and Marne said it was a date!” says McEntire.“We just had a really nice evening, and I hugged his neck goodbye to get inthe car with Marne to go back to the hotel. And I said, ‘Come see me.’ And onJune 16, he did.”
Reba McEntire and Rex Linn on ABC’s ‘Big Sky: Deadly Trails.’ (Photo: MichaelMoriatis/ABC via Getty Images)
McEntire and Linn’s second in-person date probably would have happened a lotsooner than June 2020, if unfortunate life and world circumstances hadn’tintervened. But they maintained a remote courtship until Linn could takeMcEntire up on her invitation. Upon McEntire’s return to Nashville after theirfateful Sherman Oaks dinner, she and Linn “kept texting,” but sadly, she soonlearned that her mother had bladder cancer. “I was texting him and he said,’Hey, call me anytime, if you need to talk.’ And I just called him and wetalked every day; I think that was around the 1st of February. And we talkedevery day since,” McEntire recalls.
McEntire’s mother died on March 14, 2020, but that same month, the COVID-19pandemic began, so Linn couldn’t come out to Nashville to visit. But he andMcEntire eventually reunited in June. “I’ve just loved him even more forgetting on a plane during the pandemic,” McEntire gushes. “So, it was truelove, and it’s lasted, and we’re having more fun now than we did when we firstgot together.”
McEntire, now age 67, didn’t expect to fall in love again, with 66-year-oldLinn or anyone else — “I wasn’t looking for it, wasn’t looking at all,” sheinsists — and when Yahoo Entertainment asks her to give advice to any singlesof a certain age who might think their chances of finding romance have passedthem by, she chuckles, “Well, I promise you, I’m the burden person you needto start asking love advice, after being divorced twice!”
More seriously, McEntire, who was also married to steer wrestling champion andrancher Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987, answers: “It’s a good idea to kindof make a mental note of past comments from past relationships, about thethings you did wrong, and analyze that — admit if that’s right, or if that itwas wrong, what I did, and how to be a better partner, be a better listener,be a more considerate, take more time. Instead of knowing that there’s 50,000things I’d rather be doing, maybe sit down and watch a football game, or four[games] in one day. Yes, that’s true love! I’m a bigger fan of football now —that’s what’s come out of this! But wow, I love hanging with Rex. We’re goodfriends. We love each other, and it’s just really, really special. And I’mvery grateful and thankful to God that he came into my life, at this period ofmy life. I mean, it’s the best.”
Another fantastic development of McEntire’s personal and professionalpartnership with Linn has been the opportunity to take on edgier, darker, moredramatic acting roles alongside him, whether it be in David E. Kelley’s crimethriller BigSky (in which she and Linn portray a married couple) or in TheHammer , which tackles serious subjects like drug policy reform and sexualmisconduct. “Just to do something different, more challenging… it’s just somuch fun to go dark,” says McEntire. “I’m known as a very bubbly, uptempoperson, and to go into that dark place was just interesting. It was fun toplay with.”
But as it turns out, back in the ’90s, McEntire had an opportunity to take> on another sort of against-type dramatic role: Molly Brown in Titanic> which eventually went to Oscar winner Kathy Bates. Titanic could have> changed the entire course of McEntire’s acting career, but as she has> already pointed out, timing really is everything.
“I with with James Cameron. I went and auditioned in person and wanted thepart really, really bad,” McEntire reveals. “But when our schedules didn’tline up, I had to go with my schedule of [concert] touring, because I had allmy band, crew, all of the venues already booked. And when they said, ‘No, notthese three months; we need these three months,’ I had to pass, because you’vegot a lot of people’s livelihoods standing there looking at you. And if we hadmoved those dates, well, we wouldn’t have gotten the venues that we wanted. …I wished I could have [acted in Titanic ], but you have to take care of yourpeople. And they [the band] were number one.”
More than 25 years later, McEntire has no regrets. Her career is more bustlingthan ever, with “a lot of plates spinning” in 2023, including her first-everheadlining concerts at two iconic venues, the Hollywood Bowl and MadisonSquare Garden; “a lot more acting things in development,” possibly with Linn;and other ventures like a new Oklahoma restaurant called Reba’s Place, aclothing line at Dillard’s, a footwear line with Justin Boots, and a newlifestyle book. And she’s certainly enjoying her fun lifestyle at the moment.
“I’m very thankful, very grateful, and I absolutely did not think, even threeyears ago, that I’d be as busy as I am now,” McEntire says, beaming. “But Ilove being busy. I love to work. Rex and I both love to work — but I like toplay hard, too. I love to go on vacations. I love to see the world. And we’regoing to do a little bit of that, too, now that we’ve worked so hard in 2022.But boy, when the job offers come in, if it’s something that you really wantto do, we’ll be doing it —if they let us!”
Reba McEntire ‘s The Hammer, executive-produced by and starring McEntire,premieres Jan. 7 at 8 pm on Lifetime. Check out McEntire’s full, extendedYahoo Entertainment interview above for more discussion of the film, as wellas talk about her acting debut in the 1990 Kevin Bacon cult classic _Tremors_the challenges of being a woman in country music, and whether she and Linnwill ever record a musical duet.