Lainey Wilson is grateful she found a supportive partner in her longtime boyfriend Devlin “Duck” Hodges. The former football player has been Wilson’s biggest fan as her career continues to skyrocket, content to watch from the sidelines while all of Wilson’s dreams come true.
“He knew getting into this, this is what I’ve been doing my whole life, this is what I’m gonna do, and so he knew what he was getting himself into,” Wilson shared on Audacy’s Rob + Holly. “He is a supportive cheerleader and he’s got his own things going too, and I support him and I cheer him on. He high-fives me in the door and on the way out.”
Hodges formerly played for the Pittsburgh Steelers, after being a star player at Samford University for four years. His own drive as an athlete is, in many ways, similar to Wilson’s path in country music.
“He played football for a while and he had to work his tail off to get to where he ended up, and he went for that from the time he was five years old ’til he made it to the NFL,” Wilson shares. “So in a different kind of way, he’s done what I’m doing.”
“He knows just enough about the music industry, but not too much to where I can completely turn it off and we can just be cooking supper and talking about the most random things [while] watchin’ Family Feud… it’s good to have him to escape [to].”
Wilson has been vocal about her gratitude for Hodges, especially as her career takes her away from home for long periods of time.
“I just decided to keep something for myself, you know?” Wilson told the New York Post last year, explaining why they dated for two years before going public with their relationship. “And I laugh and say I wanted to see if he was in it for the right reasons — and turns out he was. He’s a good boy. He’s the kind of dude that high-fives me on the way out the door. He’s just a good person, and he’s my cheerleader.
“He knows how important country music is to me, and he knows how important my job is to me, and he just cheers me on from the sidelines,” she continued. “It’s really cool to be able to share a life with somebody who also was super passionate about something since he was a child.”
Any time Wilson and Hodges spend together over the next few months will likely have to be on the road. The Louisiana native will kick off her Country’s Cool Again Tour at Ascend Amphitheater on May 31, the same day she opens her own Bell Bottoms Up Bar in downtown Nashville.
Wilson will be in Nashville for CMA Fest, and also to be inducted as the newest member of the Grand Ole Opry, after being invited to join by Reba McEntire while appearing on The Voice, where she was turned down a total of seven times as a contestant.
I didn’t even make it to the part where they turn the chairs around,” Wilson recently told Entertainment Tonight with a laugh. “But it just kind of lit a fire under me, and I said, ‘You gotta keep on going.’”
Wilson has a Top 25 hit with“Hang Tight Honey,” which she released after celebrating her seventh consecutive No. 1 hit, with “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.” Her Whirlwind album will be out on August 23.
Find all of Wilson’s music and upcoming shows at LaineyWilson.com.