Reba McEntire Reflects on How Her Faith Saved Her Career after Her Devastating Divorce

There’s something about divorces that sometimes makes a person who just came from it feel like they’re starting all over again with their lives. For Reba McEntire, leaving her husband meant she could take charge of both her personal life and her career. She didn’t say it was easy, but she did know that with good friends around you, anyone can survive the pain of starting over.

Reba McEntire Shares Her Story: “I Started Signing the Checks”

During her appearance on the latest Apple Fitness+ Time to Walk , the country legend discussed her life moving forward from a marriage that lasted for over 26 years.

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While the “How Blue” singer knows a thing or two about calling shots, she admitted that managing her domestic life and her career after she separated from her husband was not so easy at first.

“Things started going south with my marriage. Narvel Blackstock, my manager and husband at the time — we got a divorce, and the shocker of it all was, there were four people who were taking care of all my business,” she said during the Apple Fitness+ Time to Walk Experience episode, which PEOPLE exclusively covered. “I had my production manager who left, I had my CEO who left, my manager and husband, and my father had died. So four men who were rock and pillars of my world were gone.”

“I started taking over signing the checks and then I started realizing how much water cost, and the electric bill, and all the things that was going on in my life,” she added. “I made the money, I brought it home. So it was a huge, huge change for me.”

McEntire’s father passed away at age 86 in October 2014

McEntire’s father passed away at age 86 in October 2014, a mere months before her divorce from Narvel Blackstock. Despite the divorce, McEntire has often said that she is very close to the Blackstock family and considers her three step-children’s children to be her grandchildren.

Not only did Reba step up to manage her career, she also found a way to come to terms with the upheaval of her personal life.

“Everything that I was dealing with privately, personally — I had to run it all through God. I had to say, ‘OK big boy, I can’t handle this. This is way over my pay grade — I don’t know what to do,'” she said. “And I would wait, and He would guide me. And so without my faith, I have no idea where I would be or my career would be, at this time today.”

“Everything that I was dealing with privately, personally — I had to run it all through God. I had to say, ‘OK big boy, I can’t handle this. This is way over my pay grade — I don’t know what to do,'” she said. “And I would wait, and He would guide me. And so without my faith, I have no idea where I would be or my career would be, at this time today.”

For Reba, sharing her journey to recovery with others is something she looks forward to doing.
“If someone walked up to me and said, ‘Reba, I’m going through a situation like you did — what’s your advice?’ I would say, ‘Go home, regroup, and listen to see what you’re supposed to do next.’ Rally friends around you, good positive friends that have your best interests at heart — which I did — and you will survive,'” she added.

The Time to Walk program, now in its second season, launched on Apple Fitness+ with four big names in the entertainment industry—Parton, musician Shawn Mendes, Uzo Aduba from Orange Is the New Black, and the NBA’s Draymond Green. Each of the stars takes listeners on a walk, chatting about stories and music that inspires them. Notable places from their route is also pictured and it pops up automatically on Apple Watch.

Time to Walk is available on Apple Watch for Fitness+ subscribers. New episodes, which are 25 to 40 minutes each, will be released every Monday via the Workout app. Time to Walk for wheelchair users becomes Time to Push. (Bluetooth headphones are required to pair with Apple Watch.)

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