In what sounds like the making of a number one country hit, a veteran country singer is spilling the sweet tea about the time his ex-wife shot him during a domestic dispute over three decades ago.
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And in true country fashion, he’s forgiven her…
On July 28, Trace Adkins appeared on the This Past Weekend with Theo Von podcast, where he even managed to crack a few jokes about the 1994 incident in which his then-wife Julie Curtis shot him as he tried to disarm her during an argument about his drinking.
“[She] took it a little far, I thought,” the 64-year-old “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” singer mused. “That was uncalled for. That was totally uncalled for,” Adkins added of getting shot by his ex-wife. “Just leave. Let’s just call it quits, and we don’t have to go that far.”
Adkins, who chose not to press charges, believes Curtis never intended to shoot him. Looking back, he thinks she had no idea what the gun was capable of. “I’d never seen her hold or shoot a gun. I knew she had one, but I don’t think she knew what was about to happen when she pulled that trigger,” he said. “She thought it was a toy.”
Adkins explained that during an argument in which Curtis wanted Adkins to leave and he refused, she held a gun under his left arm and fired. The bullet passed straight through his heart and lungs, exiting under his right arm.
The “(This Ain’t) No Thinkin’ Thing” singer also revealed why he forgave her. It seems she held Adkins in pretty high regard, according to him.
“She thought I was indestructible,” he recalled.
Trace Adkins Recalls His Ex-Wife Shooting Him: ‘It Was a Kill Shot’
He was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, where he underwent emergency open-heart surgery.
“It was a kill shot. And the doctor said the only reason I survived was because the bullet went through at point-blank velocity, at muzzle velocity, so it didn’t have time to mushroom,” he told Theo Von. “If it hadn’t been for that Life Flight and Vanderbilt Medical Center, I wouldn’t be here.”
Unsurprisingly, Adkins and Curtis called it quits later that year (getting shot through the heart is a dealbreaker, even for dudes with grit). He channeled the literal heartbreak (via bullet wound) into his debut album, Dreamin’ Out Loud, released in 1996.
Meanwhile, Adkins, who shares five daughters with two other ex-wives, married actress Victoria Pratt in a 2019 ceremony officiated by Blake Shelton.
Good news for Trace: as of writing, his latest wife has yet to shoot him.