Country music star Lainey Wilson and former NFL player Devlin ‘Duck’ Hodges are officially engaged after four years of dating.
The singer, 32, took to Instagram on February 12 to share the gushing announcement, showing off photos from the moment the ex Pittsburgh Steelers player popped the question outside the $5.95 million Tennessee estate belonging to the late country musician George Jones.
Alongside photos of the newly engaged couple posing on the porch, Wilson also shared photos and a short clip of herself showing off the massive sparkler on her ring finger.
Another photo showed Wilson staring deeply into the 28-year-old athlete’s eyes, as he smiled for the camera after getting down on one knee.
In the Instagram caption, she referenced her song 4x4xU, writing ‘4x4xU forever’ with a red heart emoji.
The engagement came just in time too, after the Louisiana native admitted just last month that she was tired of ‘waiting’ for Hodges to propose and said she might have to pop the question herself.
While the pair made their first public appearance together at the Academy of Country Music Awards in May 2023, the couple has actually been together long before then.
FEMAIL has taken a closer look at Wilson and Hodges’ romance, and how they went from rising country star and rookie football quarterback to the southern version of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce.
Who is Lainey Wilson?
Lainey Denay Wilson was born on May 19, 1992, and raised in Baskin, Louisiana – a town of less than 300 people. Her father Brian was a farmer while her mother, Michelle, was a schoolteacher. Wilson also has an older sister named Janna.
She developed a passion for music at a young age, when she attended a performance at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee, at nine years old. ‘I just remember looking up there, being like, ‘Man, I wanna do that,’ Wilson told The Boot in 2020.
Her father taught her a few chords on the guitar, which is when she began to take up songwriting. In her teenage years, Wilson even took up a job impersonating Miley Cyrus’s alter ego Hannah Montana – performing at birthday parties and county fairs.
‘I’d be like, “Can Lainey Wilson open the show?”‘ she recalled to Rolling Stone in December 2021. ‘They’d be like, “Who’s Lainey?” I’d be like, “The person you hired to be Hannah Montana!”‘
She moved to Nashville when she turned 19, living in a camper trailer parked outside a recording studio owned by a family friend. After years of playing small shows throughout Nashville, she released her self-titled debut album in 2014.
Her second album, Tougher, was released two years later and charted at No. 44 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums list. By 2018, Wilson had signed her first publishing deal with Broken Bow Records.
However, her big break came in 2019 thanks to the hit Paramount western-drama series Yellowstone, when her song Working Overtime played during season two of the Kevin Costner-led show.
Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan went on to feature Wilson’s singles Straight Up Sideways and Small Town Girl in season three, along with Smell Like Smoke in season five.
In fact, Wilson made a four-episode on-screen appearance during Yellowstone’s fifth season in 2022 as Abby, a musician who has a romantic relationship with actor Ian Bohen’s character Ryan.
Wilson shot to stardom thanks to her Yellowstone stint, and went on tour with fellow country musician Morgan Wallen. Her 2020 single, Things a Man Oughta Know, later became a number one hit and her 2022 album, Bell Bottom Country, received numerous accolades.
In 2023, she won Album of the Year for Bell Bottom Country and Female Artist of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, as well as the Grammy Award for Best Country Album.
Although Wilson has kept her political views to herself, she hasn’t shied away from sharing her pride for her country.
Speaking to Fox News Digital in July 2024, Wilson said that being an American ‘means being free’ and that ‘freedom is a good feeling.’
‘Being an American to me, oh my goodness, it means everything to me. I’ll tell you what, I would not be able to be doing this,’ she said. ‘It means being free and freedom is a good feeling.’
While co-hosting the CMA Awards with Luke Bryan and Peyton Manning in November 2024, Wilson also made a subtle political message during the opening monologue.
‘Side note y’all, there’s one thing that I wanna say to everybody here about the recent results,’ she said on-stage, referencing the recent 2024 presidential election, in which Donald Trump beat out then-Vice President Kamala Harris.
She continued: ‘Whether the candidate you voted for won or lost, we all need to get together behind the winner.’
Manning then chimed in: ‘Lainey, we talked about this now. Let’s not get into politics tonight.’
Wilson jokingly clarified: ‘I’m talking about the vote for People’s Sexiest Man Alive.’
Who is Devlin ‘Duck’ Hodges?
The Alabama native, who got his start playing football at Samford University, has been more vocal about his political leanings than his fiancée.
In 2019, during his rookie season with the Steelers, Hodges was caught deleting old posts on X (Twitter) expressing his support for Trump. According to Complex, one tweet simply read ‘Donald Trump’ with a thumbs up and an American flag emoji.
‘Wanting Donald Trump to fail is like wanting the pilot to crash the plane that we are ALL on,’ another since-deleted tweet read.
While playing football in college, he received the nickname Duck for his expertise in duck calling, ESPN reported. Hodges won the 2009 Junior World Duck Calling Contest when he was 13, and the Alabama State Duck Calling Championship in 2018.
He is also an avid duck hunter and his Instagram is filled with posts of Hodges wearing camouflage during duck hunts.
After his contract with the Steelers expired in January 2021, he briefly signed with the Los Angeles Rams before signing a three-year deal with the Ottawa Redblacks of the Canadian Football League.
Hodges announced his retirement from professional football in April 2022, and went on to become a real estate agent. He currently works as an agent for Memphis-based real estate firm Myers Cobb Realtors.
His realtor profile states he’s an ambassador for Chene Gear, an outdoor hunting gear retailer.
When did they begin dating?
Hodges and Wilson sparked a relationship in 2021 after meeting through mutual friends in Nashville.
In an interview with People, the singer recalled how her first date with Hodges took place at a dance hall and saloon that was known for its cheap drinks and live music.
‘We went to this old place called Silverados, and it had free beer and wine from five to 10 pm,’ she said. ‘I was like, “This boy likes to ball on a budget too. This is gonna work out.”‘
However, they didn’t make their romance public until two years later when they walked the red carpet at the 2023 Academy of Country Music Awards. Speculation surrounding their relationship had sparked weeks prior after Wilson performed in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, wearing Hodges’ Steelers jersey on stage.
‘I said, “We gonna see if you’re in it for the right reasons.” Turns out, he is,’ she told People.
Wilson also described her then-boyfriend as ‘one of my biggest cheerleaders and champions’ and gushed over their ‘healthy relationship.’
‘I was never really able to write love songs, because I don’t know if I had actually felt it, but I’m writing me some love songs now,’ she added. ‘I’m grateful for him.’