Sam Hunt + Hannah Lee Fowler — Country’s Greatest Love Stories
April 15 is a very special day for country star Sam Hunt: It's his wedding anniversary with his wife, Hannah Lee Fowler. The couple tied the knot on that date in 2017, in Hunt's hometown of Cedartown, Ga.
The "Body Like a Back Road" singer initially began his relationship with his now-wife through on-again, off-again dating, but she has also long been the inspiration behind his music: His debut album, Montevallo, was named for the town where Fowler grew up. In the wee hours of Jan. 1, 2017, Hunt dropped a new song, "Drinkin' Too Much," that further spoke to his relationship with Fowler, as well as about the ways in which she had contributed to his songwriting.
Presumably written during one of of their "off-again" periods, "Drinkin' Too Much" serves as an apology to Fowler, and a meditation on a relationship that Hunt couldn't let go: "I'm sorry I named the album Montevallo / I'm sorry people know your name now / And hit you up on social media," Hunt sings in the first verse of the track. "I know you want your privacy / You've got nothing to say to me / But I wish you'd let me pay off your student loans with these songs you gave to me."
While privacy has long been important to the Fowler and Hunt, by the end of 2016, it seemed reasonable to assume that the pair had gotten back together due to posts on Hunt's Instagram. In early 2017, just a day after "Drinkin' Too Much" was released, a rep for Hunt confirmed that the couple was engaged.
"I realized she was meant to be a part of my life," the singer told Nash Country Daily that January, "and when I realized that, as fast as I could, I went to try to convince her that was the way it needed to be."
The couple got engaged during a trip to Israel, though Hunt's original plan for the proposal got slightly delayed due to "this little disagreement" the two had, as Hunt explained in studio on The Bobby Bones Show: "We got real for a minute, after this little rift that we had. In that moment, it just felt perfect," he recalled. "Everything -- after I asked her to marry me -- just fizzled away, and we celebrated and got excited together."
Hunt wrote his chart-topping single "Body Like a Back Road" after getting engaged to Fowler. The country star says that he relies on his wife for her input regarding his songs.
"I probably should've included her as a co-writer on a lot of these songs," he told E! regarding the tracks on Montevallo. "I get a lot of insight into females in general from being in a close relationship with her. I used a lot of that when writing on the songs, because a lot of the songs are relationship-based."
WATCH: 6 Sam Hunt Songs About His Wife, Hannah Lee Fowler