Brad Paisley Opens Up About the Heartbreak That Led Him to Meeting His Wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley

Brad Paisley and his wife, Kimberly Williams-Paisley have been married for over two decades, and their love story is truly one for the ages. The country star recently opened up about the clever, unexpected way they found each other and the incredible life they’ve built together, including their two children and shared philanthropic work.

It’s known that the lovebirds met when Kimberly starred in his “I’m Gonna Miss Her” music video in 2002, but sitting down with TODAY’s Hoda Kotb, Paisley now reveals how an ex-relationship is actually partly the reason they came to work together.

The story begins with Paisley’s first serious girlfriend in college. He says for their first date, they went out for pizza and saw the iconic movie “Father of the Bride,” which stars Kimberly as Annie Banks, the bride-to-be. All was going well between them until Paisley made the move to Nashville in pursuit of his dreams and transferred to Belmont University, leaving the girlfriend behind in his hometown. Then, Paisley says the girl cheated on him with his best friend and it was the “best gift she could have ever given me.”

This heartbreak fueled his creativity and inspired him to write new music, but he admits it wasn’t an easy heartbreak to get over.

“My songwriting best friends and all my friends were songwriters and co-writers and they were like, ‘You just got to get over this,’” he recalls.

His songwriter friends finally stepped in, encouraging him to face the pain head-on by recreating the night where the relationship first began in hopes that it would bring either fate or closure. So in one last attempt to determine if he was meant to be with the girl or not, he returned to the same theater one year later to watch Father of the Bride Part II.

“So I do that. I go home for Christmas, I buy a ticket to ‘Father of the Bride Part II’ at the theater we went to…by now [I’ve] had thought for weeks about this, she’s going to be there. And I go in, movie starts, I’m sitting in the back and watching people come in. She doesn’t come in, but the movie’s good, so I stay. So I leave, go to get in the car and I’m going to put the key in the door and it’s like closure. I needed this too.”

Paisley then noted that he wasn’t convinced so he bought another ticket for the same movie, saw it for the second time, only to realize that the girl was never coming. He headed back to Nashville and ended up writing a song about his entire experience called “Part II” that later became the title track to his second album.

In a full-circle moment, the West Virginia native reached out to Kimberly, who he only knew from her role in the classic film, and asked her to be part of his music video. “I’m Gonna Miss Her” began as a fun song he penned in college and evolved out something much bigger. It became Paisley’s third number one on the Billboard country charts and more importantly, the reason he met his now wife.

“I got Kim’s number from a friend and that knew her or had met her. I didn’t know much about her at all. And I just said, ‘it would be poetic justice if you were in the music video, wouldn’t it?’ And there’s more to it than that. But in the end, we talked on the phone, I talked to her manager first, told the manager the story, and the manager’s like, ‘She’ll call you.’ So she calls me. The manager calls Kim and says, ‘I know he says he wants you to be in the video, but you’re going to date.’”

The lovebirds eventually tied the knot in March 2003 and have two sons together, William Huckleberry, born in 2007, and Jasper Warren, born in 2009. Along with raising their kids and pursuing their respective careers in the entertainment business, they also make sure to give back to their community.

Philanthropy is something Paisley says both his parents and Kimberly instilled in him at an early age, and now they’re focused on passing those same values on to their kids. That commitment shows up in their charitable work through The Store, an organization they co-founded in Middle Tennessee. The nonprofit works to combat food insecurity by offering a more dignified approach to food assistance and aims to empower individuals and families with choice, education, and support.

“The values instilled in Kim by her parents, some of her earliest memories are driving around with her mom who was delivering Meals on Wheels that really stuck with her. She would take her kids in the car and meanwhile, they didn’t have any money.

He continued, “And then in my case, my parents used to really make me give back because I was doing these cool things like playing that radio show and opening for really neat people like The Judds and Charlie Daniels or whoever would come through town and Charlie Pride and got people like that. And then they would say, ‘Well, you’re booked, this week you’re going over to hospice and singing for the hospice floor at the hospital,’” Paisley recalls. “And it was like instilled in me that, okay, so if you’re getting to play music, you should be doing something good with it, not just selfish with it, not just trying to make it in the music business.”

What started as a young heartbreak ultimately led Paisley to the partner he was meant to find, and together, he and Kimberly have built not just a lasting marriage, but a life rooted in family, and generosity. Their love story shows how unexpected moments can end up shaping life in meaningful ways.