Toby Keith’s Children Make First Public Appearance Together Since His Death
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Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards were a night to remember for many reasons. But one of the most special was the first public appearance from all three of Toby Keith’s children since his death in February.
Shelley Covel Rowland, Krystal Keith and Stelen Keith Covel walked the red carpet together ahead of Sunday night’s CMT Music Awards. Stelen represented his family at last month’s Country Music Hall of Fame induction announcement, but this marked the first time all three of Toby Keith‘s kids have appeared together in public since he passed away on February 5, 2024.
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The three were on-hand to witness the first public tribute in honor of their late father that will be taking place during the live awards show. Some of Toby’s closest friends and some whose career he has impacted, teamed up to cover three of his biggest songs.
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Executive producer John Hamlin told Variety ahead of Sunday’s show that it was important for them to make this tribute something special.
“Toby’s had a very important relationship with this brand and this channel for 20 years now,” Hamlin said. “He never mailed it in on music videos; they were always clever, funny, memorable on almost every occasion. The CMT Music Awards is honoring music videos to this day, and he’s an icon to this brand, so he will be greatly missed for sure. And yes, we wanted to try to do it right. I, for one, don’t love medleys in shows. And so we really kind of went out of our way to make sure that we picked his three biggest songs and found the right people to do them.”
The network recruited ’90s super duo Brooks and Dunn to cover Toby’s “Should’ve Been a Cowboy,” classic rocker Sammy Hagar to perform “I Love This Bar,” and one of country music’s biggest stars, Lainey Wilson, to sing “How Do You Like Me Now?”.
Toby Keith’s longtime band, Easy Money, backed up the performers. Willie Nelson’s son, Lukas, and Toby’s longtime friend, baseball great Roger Clemens, are also slated to participate in the tribute.
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It’s no surprise that CMT pulled out all the stops to put together a tribute for Toby Keith that have made the legend proud.
Over the course of his career, Toby Keith was nominated for 30 CMT Music Awards, won 7, and had the honor of performing on the awards show 13 times. He also co-hosted the show twice: In 2003 with Pamela Anderson and in 2012 with Kristen Bell.
Tune into CBS Sunday night, April 7, to see the touching tribute to Toby Keith on the CMT Music Awards.
