Reba McEntire is engaged to Texas-born actor Rex Linn after five years of dating.
The country music legend confirmed the news alongside Linn on the red carpet of the 2025 Emmy Awards in Los Angeles on September 14, according to E! News. PEOPLE magazine also reported the engagement, citing a source who said, “It happened a few months ago and they are very happy.”
McEntire, 70, and Linn, 68, first met in the 1990s but reconnected in 2020, shortly after McEntire’s mother passed away. Linn, who was born in Perryton, Texas, and spent his teenage years in Spearman before his family relocated to Oklahoma City in 1969, bonded with McEntire during quarantine. McEntire, originally from McAlester, Oklahoma, has described the couple’s connection as instant.
Bobbie and Emmett hit the red carpet ❤️ #Emmys @eentertainment @enews pic.twitter.com/P17VsyMlLt
— Reba McEntire (@reba) September 15, 2025
“In 2020, when Mama got sick, he called me,” McEntire said on Today in October 2021. “We’d gotten to see each other before because we’re both on Young Sheldon. So starting in March of 2020, we just kept talking and visiting and finally got together, see each other in June. And we’ve been pretty much inseparable ever since.”
The couple now stars together on the NBC sitcom Happy’s Place, which Linn has called “a dream come true,” per People.
McEntire said they were “having a blast on Happy’s Place” at the Emmys.
Earlier this year, McEntire praised their partnership in an interview with Fox News, saying, “He’s a better cook than I am, so I like that, for sure. We love Longhorns, we love the cowboy way of life, cowgirl way of life, and we both got into the entertainment industry… He’s an actor. I’m a singer. I love to act. Now we act together.”
McEntire, who was previously married twice, told E! News in 2024 that she would walk down the aisle again if Linn wanted to experience marriage. “He’s never been married before. So, if he wants to experience that, I’m OK with that.”
Linn previously explained why this was important to the happy couple. “We wanna cross the finish line with each other in a relationship,” he told local broadcaster WBIR Channel 10 in November 2024.