The Wild Story Of How Alan Jackson Wooed His Wife Denise By Hiding In The Back Of Her Car

In honor of country music legend Alan Jackson's 66th birthday today, I thought it'd be fun to highlight the origins of his relationship with his wife, Denise. Because behind every great man is a great woman. Or so some version of that long-running cliché goes. Not sure what that says about me as a mid-30s single dude and what I've accomplished (or haven't) in my life to date. But I digress. This ain't about me. Before we get rolling on this, important disclaimer: Some of the moves Jackson pulled to initially woo Denise would absolutely not go over well today. In fact, he was only 1-for-2 decades ago when he took such a bold approach to courtship. The rizz was strong, perhaps too strong, with young Alan Jackson. As told by Denise on the Backstory program that ran on the Great American Country channel (now known as Great American Family), Jackson tried a pick-up line of sorts. Brace yourselves: He flipped a penny down Denise's shirt, and then asked if he could retrieve it. Denise did not hesitate to reject him. You could argue that Jackson was even more audacious in his next attempt to win Denise over. She got into her car to drive away from the local Dairy Queen, unaware that Jackson had hidden in the backseat while she was parked. He popped up and scared the daylights out of her, prompting Denise to scream and pull the car over. From there, however, they got to talking, and that moment proved to be the start of their relationship. Who would've thought that many years later, Ryan Gosling's Ken would do the exact same thing to Margot Robbie's Barbie in a billion-dollar blockbuster movie about a toy doll? https://youtu.be/HdDfZfJVp7M?si=39a3Sg99Uy9Vs7ey&t=16 Maybe Jackson had cowboy boots instead of roller blades, but let's not get caught up in the details. Unfortunately for Ken — spoiler alert for a two-year old movie — Barbie doesn't end up with him, despite the risk he took to follow her beyond the ends of their dimension to a whole other world. How cold of you, Barbie! In the real world (this will soon pay off), things went a little better for Alan Jackson. He and Denise were high school sweethearts who wound up getting married in December 1979, and had three daughters. They're grandparents now, too. Although their marriage was strained over the years and they even separated in the late 1990s, Alan and Denise are still together to this day. Quite the story for the couple from a small town in Georgia. I doubt Alan Jackson would appreciate being linked to Barbie on his birthday. Thus, to self-deprecate and circle back to my aforementioned singledom, it feels appropriate to close out with a throwback to Jackson's second single and title track from his debut album, Here in the Real World . "But here in the real world, it's not that easy at all 'Cause when hearts get broken, it's real tears that fall And darling, it's sad but true, but the one thing I've learned from you, Is how the boy don't always get the girl here in the real world." The good news for Alan Jackson is, he did get the girl in the end. Funny enough, it was actually Denise who encouraged her husband to take a country music career seriously in the first place, going as far to network and pitch him to help get his foot in the door. And the rest, as they say, is country music history! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mKkTm38w3E