During her Grammy acceptance speech for Best Country Album for Golden Hour on Feb. 10, Kacey Musgraves shared some heartfelt sentiments about her singer/songwriter husband, Ruston Kelly.
“My sweet husband is down here, Ruston—I love you,” said Kacey from the stage. “I really believe I wouldn’t have this album if I hadn’t met you and you didn’t open my heart like you did, so thank you so much.”
The future lovebirds initially met at Nashville’s Bluebird Cafe in March 2016, after one of Ruston’s shows. A few months later, they got together for a songwriting session—and the rest is history. Kacey and Ruston got engaged in December 2016, before tying the knot in October 2017.
If you were wondering how Ruston helped “open” her heart, Kacey recently shared the sweet details with Blair Garner of the Blair Garner Show.
“First of all, it was his songs,” says Kacey. “This is such a Nashville story, but it was February, early March 2016, and I had nothing to do one night and I was randomly in town. I had just taken time off the road to just stay in town and write and start getting creative again, kind of get back to my creative center. This one night in particular, I didn’t have any plans. A friend was playing a songwriter round at the Bluebird and they were like, ‘You should come.’ So I went alone and sat at a table. Ruston was playing in the songwriting round and I had no idea who he was. But he played these songs, and they just really got to me. They floored me. I was kind of in a sad headspace around this time. I had just gotten out of a relationship and creatively was kind of lost. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do and I just felt kind of weird.
“Anyways, his songs really spoke to me and I loved them so much. After the show, I went up to him and I said, ‘Hey, I never do this, but I really love your songs. Here’s my number. We should write sometime.’ That’s not like me to really step out on a limb like that. I definitely wasn’t even thinking in romantic terms. I just was really intrigued by his songs and his brain. I said we should write. So a few months went by and he would try to text me every now and then. I’d be like, delete. Whatever. I wasn’t looking for anything.
“But May 11th rolled around, 2016. I remember the date, May 11th. And he was coming to my house to write. The second he walked in my door, it was like just Dorothy walking into the colorful side of Wizard of Oz. He made me laugh again. I hadn’t laughed in what felt like forever. We made drinks, and we didn’t even get to writing because we were just talking about life and ourselves into the night. Just really hit it off. It just felt like, ‘Whoa, who is this? This is my best friend. Where have you been? Who are you?’ I wasn’t trying to get into any kind of relationship. I was like, ‘Damnit.’ But this is awesome. And then we dated for eight or nine months, got engaged. We were engaged for another nine months, and then we got married in October.”
