Credit: Taylor Hill/Getty Images
October 2025
A day before the release of Carlile’s eighth solo album, Back to myselfthe singer-songwriter and his wife addressed rumors that the LP is actually about their divorce.
“A reporter I won’t name recently came up to me and asked if this was a divorce album,” Shepherd said in a TalkShopLive video with Carlile “So, I just wanted to clear something up before people hear this album and start the rumor mill. Are we getting divorced?”
Carlile laughed back, saying, “No! Cringe.”
Shepherd went on to explain that two of Carlile’s new songs, “A Woman Oversees” and “Anniversary,” are likely what sparked the speculation. “When Brandi wrote those songs, she was wherever she was and I was at home with the kids,” Shepherd recalled. “And he texted me late at night and sent me these demos and was like, ‘We should probably talk after we hear these songs.’ So I listened to them and listened to them over and over again, and they were so good that I didn’t want to, like, get in the way of the process, so I was just like, ‘We don’t need to talk, just keep writing.'”
Carlile noted that Shepherd later said the two songs were his wife’s “best songs,” and Shepherd agreed.
“I think that speaks to your emotional depth and the fact that you’re an artist,” Carlile told his partner. “You know we write from moments in time, fragments, moments of doubt, moments of pain, moments of fear, anticipation, and those moments are just snapshots. We capture them. It doesn’t mean they’re in motion, it doesn’t mean we carry them forward. But honoring the fact that the feeling is happening, I think it’s happening, is very important. songwriting.”
The Grammy winner then joked, “Also, I’ve been on your phone and I’ve seen some shit you’ve said about me in your lyrics in your notes. So I know. Listen, we’re just real married people with real life issues and losses and the things we struggle with in these moments of aging together. Why don’t we need to share that with the world?”
Shepherd added, “It’s always unrequited love or the beginnings. People never talk about the middle or the struggle, and I think it’s very relatable.”