Garth Brooks refers to the years raising his children out of the spotlight in Oklahoma as “life at its best,” but it didn’t come without its challenges.
In the country music star’s newly released book, “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home,” Brooks recalled being the most “lost” he’s ever been when uprooting his entire life and returning to where he was raised to “learn” how to be a father.
A little backstory: Brooks and his first wife, Sandy Mahl, were married from 1986 until they officially divorced in 2001. The former couple share three daughters: Taylor, August and Allie.
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On Oct. 26, 2000, Brooks decided to announce his retirement from music. He soon moved back to Oklahoma to raise his kids.
Storme Warren, a television and radio broadcaster of Brooks’ SEVENS Network, was there when Brooks announced his retirement during an emotional press conference.
“It was a big deal, and it was stirring, and we all sat there and went, ‘He just announced his retirement after ten years on top, ten years of being the biggest superstar on the planet,’” Warren said in Brooks’ book.
Dave Gant, who was a member of Brooks’ band, couldn’t believe that the star would walk away from his career.
“How could he walk away from that career and not ever want to do it again? But Mark Greenwood, our bass player, kept saying, ‘No, I don’t think we’re ever going back. I think he’s done,'” Gant shared.
Brooks wrote, “So, I announced my retirement and went to Oklahoma. That’s where you’re going to learn to be a dad, watch your marriage end, get as lost as you’ve ever been. How do you do that? Well, I sure didn’t know — I had to go through it in order to find out how to do it. It was one of those things.”
He continued, “More than anything else at that moment, I wanted to be a good dad, just one-tenth what my own dad was. My job before that was pretty easy. ‘Honey, I’d love to help with the kids, but I got to go out on a tour where people are going to be screaming my name, and everyone’s going to be trying to make me happy.’
“My God, it was my work, but I couldn’t blame not being a real dad on that anymore. Thanks to God and the people, we were more than financially secure, and these kids needed their own lives. They didn’t ask to come into this world, I asked for them to come into this world.”
The “Friends in Low Places” singer admitted, “My family had made a lot of sacrifices so that I could pursue my dream. Now it was my turn to make a few. And, as I found out in time, it was no sacrifice at all. It was another gift. But before the gifts could come through, I had to let some things go. I went into a kind of darkness I hadn’t known before.”
Throughout Brooks’ book, the country music star took a trip down memory lane back to the 14 years he spent in Oklahoma.
“When we first got out to Oklahoma, we stayed at Sandy’s parents. These were great people, people that I love. They were the only ones I really knew out there,” Brooks wrote, referring to his first wife’s parents.
“Sandy and I were going to make one last run at our marriage. Because, c’mon, you were married with your family present and in front of God, so you keep thinking it’s just got to work. Just one last go,” he wrote.
Even though the former couple couldn’t make things work, they stayed close.
“The thing that wasn’t going to end, of course, was the family. And what I came to learn was the person you are separating from is the person you need as your best friend in the process of ending a marriage. It’s the hardest time for that, but it’s the thing your family needs the most. And Sandy did that, for the situation, for the girls, and for me,” Brooks continued.
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In his book, Brooks details his divorce with Mahl as the “roughest time” in his life. “And I hope it continues to be the roughest. I hope I never have anything worse than that era, right there. That hurt,” he wrote.
The former couple bought a piece of land in Oklahoma and both lived, separately, on the property. Brooks lived in a 700-square foot former bunkhouse for five years.
“Sandy and I started exchanging the kids everyday at six. For fourteen years we exchanged the kids everyday at six, because we didn’t think it was fair that they would have to live without their mom or their dad,” Brooks wrote.
“So, there I was, back in Oklahoma where I was raised, settled in and just getting ready for… I didn’t know what. I was going to start learning every other day at 6 p.m. And there was going to be a lot of learning.”
Later in the book, Brooks spoke again about his reasoning for stepping away from the spotlight for a time, writing, “A man will blame having to make a living for the times he wasn’t there for his family. We’ll do that to justify why we’re gone all the time. When you’re on the road playing shows, there’s sure no reading your kids to sleep — that’s right in the middle of the heart of everything.
“But I’m telling you, that reading kids to sleep thing, that’s the best part about parenting. I could not do it from the road. I finally had to stand up and say I wasn’t going to be a dad that saw my kids one weekend out of the month. I just wasn’t going to be. Because my dad wasn’t.”
He continued, “You just had to say, ‘Hey, look, as much as I love doing music, being a parent is a thousand times better. No offense to music.’ Anybody that’s ever been a parent knows there’s nothing that beats that. I could live without music for the rest of my life. I can’t life without my children for one second.”
In 2005, singer Trisha Yearwood and Brooks tied the knot.
Bryan Kennedy, a songwriter and musician who has worked with Brooks in the past, noted in his book that “Trisha Yearwood was the difference” in the star’s life.
“He’s the most genuine person I’ve met in the entertainment world, but he was in a new situation,” Kennedy wrote, referring to Brooks’ recent divorce and becoming a single father. “Trisha Yearwood was the difference in his life. He can always be himself around her. It would take them some years, but the greatest thing he ever did was marry Trisha.”
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Brooks said, “There was no manual for what I was looking to build. The big thing for me, the savior that was on the horizon for me, would be Trisha, because she’s going to come in, and these girls are not only going to have a companion that is not their mom or their dad, but they’re going to have an example that lives with them.”
“How to treat people, how to be yourself, how to be independent. The little yellow house [what he called the home where he and his children, and later Yearwood, lived for a time in Oklahoma] was going to change when she walked into it. We were all going to change when she walked into that house,” he concluded.
Brooks and Yearwood have dealt with controversy this year.
In October, the country music star was accused of sexually assaulting “Jane Roe” in 2019 during a work trip, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital. Per the documents filed by “Jane Roe,” the woman was first hired in 1999 to do the makeup and hairstyling for Brooks’ wife, Yearwood. She began working for Brooks doing makeup and hair in 2017, a couple of years before the alleged events took place.
Brooks, 62, has denied the allegations and amended his complaint against “Jane Roe” in an Oct. 8 filing obtained by Fox News Digital. The “Much Too Young” singer accused the woman, who he named in the filing, of attempted extortion, defamation, false light invasion of privacy and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Brooks’ “The Anthology Part IV: Going Home” was released on Friday.
Fox News Digital’s Emily Trainham contributed to this report.
