47 Fun Facts About Reba

Reba McEntire is widely known by which nickname?

The Queen of Country took charge behind the scenes as well: in the late 1980s she set up her own company, Starstruck Entertainment, to run her career, from booking and management to music publishing.

What did Reba's father and grandfather both win world championships in?

Steer roping made world champions of her grandfather John in 1934 and her father Clark three times, and Reba rode rodeo herself, competing as a barrel racer through her college years.

Where was Reba singing the Star-Spangled Banner in 1974 when Red Steagall discovered her?

The finals of the pro rodeo season, the National Finals Rodeo, met in Oklahoma City then; Steagall heard her anthem and set up a Nashville demo session that led to her Mercury deal in 1975.

What did Reba study to become at college in Durant?

A public-school teacher is what her elementary education degree trained her to be, and she finished it in 1976 even though Mercury Records had already signed her as a singer the year before.

Which record label did Reba join after leaving Mercury, launching her commercial breakthrough?

MCA let Reba start choosing her own songs, and the back-to-basics My Kind of Country (1984) brought her the No. 1s 'How Blue' and 'Somebody Should Leave'.

Which 1986 title track won Reba a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance?

'Whoever's in New England' also gave Reba her first music video, shot in Boston, and playing the suspicious wife in it sparked her interest in acting.

Reba's hit 'Fancy' was a cover of a 1969 song by which singer?

Bobbie Gentry wrote and first recorded 'Fancy'; Reba wanted to cut it for years, but her producer thought it too closely tied to Gentry, so it waited until she had a new producer in 1990.

What kind of accident in March 1991 killed seven of Reba's band members and her road manager?

A plane crash: after a private show in San Diego the band left in two chartered jets, and one struck a mountain soon after take-off; Reba had stayed behind for the night.

Which album did Reba dedicate to the touring band members she lost in March 1991?

For My Broken Heart came out that October; in its liner notes she says her emotions guided the song choices, and she hopes the album will be a form of healing for every broken heart.

With which then-unknown singer did Reba record the duet 'Does He Love You'?

Linda Davis was a backing singer in Reba's own road band when Reba chose her for the 1993 duet, passing over the more established stars her label had in mind, and the gamble won them both a Grammy.

What was Reba's first film role, in 1990?

Heather Gummer in Tremors is a gun-loving survivalist who, alongside her husband Burt, helps a tiny desert town fight off giant man-eating worms that tunnel underground.

Which role did Reba play on Broadway in 2001?

Annie Oakley in Annie Get Your Gun was her Broadway debut: the Oklahoma rodeo kid took over the sharpshooter's part in the hit revival and played it from January to June 2001.

Reba won which CMA award four years in a row, starting in 1984?

Female Vocalist of the Year left her in tears at the podium in October 1984, when she had yet to win a single CMA award, and the title then stayed hers through 1987.

Which country legend formally inducted Reba into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011?

Dolly Parton did the honours that May; Reba had missed the announcement in March because she was at her father's hospital bedside in Oklahoma after his stroke.

What did Reba receive in 2018 alongside Cher, Philip Glass and Wayne Shorter?

The Kennedy Center Honors tribute included Lady Antebellum, whose singer Hillary Scott told the audience she had grown up watching Reba from the side of the stage while both her parents toured with her.

Which competition show did Reba McEntire join in 2023?

The Voice brought her in for season 24 to fill the chair of the departing Blake Shelton, after she had already dropped by the show as an adviser and a 'mega mentor'.

Reba sang the national anthem before which major sporting event in February 2024?

The Super Bowl in Las Vegas put her beside deaf actor Daniel Durant, of the Oscar-winning film CODA, who performed the anthem in American Sign Language as she sang.

Which pop hit did Reba remake as a duet with its original singer for her 2007 album Reba: Duets?

Because of You began as a teenager's private outlet: its original singer started writing it at 16 about the pain of her parents' divorce, years before she and Reba remade it as a country duet.

In the 1994 film The Little Rascals, Reba has a cameo as the boys' idol, a champion in which field?

Auto racing: Spanky, leader of a boys-only club, worships a champion driver and is stunned at the trophy presentation to discover that his hero, played by Reba, is a woman.

Which actor did Reba begin dating in 2020?

Rex Linn, best known from CSI: Miami, first met Reba in 1991 on the set of a Kenny Rogers TV western, but they only became a couple after reconnecting in 2020.

On which network did the sitcom Reba premiere in October 2001?

The WB — the sitcom premiered there on October 5, 2001; its final season moved to The CW after The WB and UPN merged in 2006.

In which city is the sitcom Reba set?

Houston took in well over 100,000 people fleeing Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and the sitcom followed suit: that autumn the Harts shelter a dog that survived the storm, then its owner's very large family.

On the sitcom Reba, what does Reba's ex-husband Brock Hart do for a living?

Dentist — Brock Hart runs a dental practice and leaves Reba for his much younger hygienist, Barbra Jean.

On the sitcom Reba, who plays Barbra Jean, the bubbly younger woman Brock leaves Reba for?

Melissa Peterman played Barbra Jean as a woman set on becoming best friends with the wife she replaced, and she and Reba have gone on working together ever since.

In the pilot of the sitcom Reba, what does the family learn about teenage daughter Cheyenne?

She is pregnant by her football-star boyfriend Van, and Reba finds out just as her husband Brock admits that his girlfriend is expecting a baby too.

On the sitcom Reba, who plays Cheyenne's football-star husband Van Montgomery?

Steve Howey spent a decade as Kevin Ball in Shameless, then turned up beside Reba and one of his old castmates again in December 2024, guest-starring in the Christmas episode of her new NBC sitcom.

On the sitcom Reba, which name does Van give his baby daughter in honour of the star of Bewitched?

Elizabeth Montgomery played Samantha the witch in Bewitched, and since Van's surname is Montgomery too, his daughter ends up with the actress's full name.

Reba's first solo Top 20 hit was a 1979 remake of 'Sweet Dreams', a song most associated with which country legend?

Patsy Cline was one of Reba's idols, and her recording of the ballad is so well known that the 1985 film of her life, starring Jessica Lange, was named after it.

Which country duo reunited in 2015 to share a long-running Las Vegas residency with Reba at Caesars Palace?

Brooks & Dunn had split after a farewell tour in 2010, and it was reportedly their old touring partner Reba who talked them into getting back together for the Vegas shows.

Which Reba song is the theme to her sitcom Reba?

I'm a Survivor was a Top 3 country hit in 2001, and its story of a hard-pressed single mother suited Reba Hart so well that a reworked version became the sitcom's theme.

Reba first played which New York venue in 1987, returning in 2005 to star in a concert staging of South Pacific?

Carnegie Hall was her New York debut that October, and her 2005 South Pacific there ran for a single night, yet it lived on as a PBS broadcast and a cast album.

Playing Reba Hart earned Reba a 2004 nomination for which major award?

A Golden Globe nomination went to its star, yet the Emmys looked past the cast entirely: the sitcom's only two Emmy nominations were both for its cinematography.

Which NBC sitcom, launched in 2024, stars Reba as a woman who inherits her father's bar?

Happy's Place casts Reba as Bobbie, who inherits her father's tavern only to learn that her new business partner is a twenty-something half-sister she never knew she had.

Which singer married Reba's stepson Brandon Blackstock in 2013?

Kelly Clarkson was already a friend who had toured with Reba in 2008, and Reba told a talk show she was thrilled to death to be getting her buddy as a daughter-in-law.

Which song gave Reba her first country number one in 1983?

Can't Even Get the Blues caught her in an unglamorous spot: she was stranded with a dead tour bus when she learned that her fourteenth single had finally gone to No. 1.

Who taught the young Reba, Pake and Susie to sing in harmony on long car rides to rodeos?

Their mother, Jacqueline, was a gifted singer herself, and the children she coached in the car went on to perform at rodeos as the Singing McEntires.

On which sitcom did Reba guest-star as June, the fiery hairdresser ex-wife of Meemaw's boyfriend Dale?

Young Sheldon first brought June in during season three, and rather than feuding with Meemaw over Dale, the hairdresser becomes her friend and keeps coming back.

What was Reba's 1990 hit album that included 'You Lie'?

Rumor Has It opens with Climb That Mountain High, a song Reba co-wrote that ABC borrowed two years later as the theme of Delta, a sitcom with Delta Burke chasing a country-singing career in Nashville.

What was the name of Reba's first husband, a champion steer wrestler she married in 1976?

Charlie Battles was a rancher ten years her senior who shared an Oklahoma spread with her, and after their 1987 divorce she moved to Nashville to put her career first.

On America's Got Talent in 2016, guest judge Reba hit her Golden Buzzer for a teenager performing which kind of act?

A contortionist: self-taught Sofie Dossi finished her routine by firing a flaming arrow from a bow with her feet, and Reba's buzzer sent the teenager straight to the live shows.

In 2018 Reba became the first female celebrity to play which fast-food mascot in TV commercials?

Colonel Sanders kept his white wig and facial hair, but Reba's version of the famous white suit gained fringe and a glittery shine, which she called a little bit of country music flair.

On the sitcom Reba, which actor plays Reba's ex-husband Brock Hart?

Christopher Rich had been the empty-headed reporter Miller Redfield on Murphy Brown, and in 2025 he rejoined Reba on screen with a guest spot on her new NBC sitcom.

Reba's 2012 ABC sitcom about a divorced mom restarting her music career was called what?

Malibu Country looked safe when ABC ordered five extra episodes within a month of its premiere, yet the network still cancelled Reba's comeback sitcom the following May after a single season.

James Cameron cast Reba in Titanic as which real passenger before her tour got in the way?

Molly Brown — Reba accepted the role, but her tour dates clashed with the film's stretched schedule, so Kathy Bates played the 'unsinkable' Denver millionaire instead.

Reba married manager Narvel Blackstock in 1989 in a private ceremony held where?

On a boat at Lake Tahoe, Reba married the former steel guitarist from her band who had risen to manage her career; they built Starstruck Entertainment together and divorced in 2015.

Which Vince Gill duet gave Reba a number-one country hit in 1993?

The Heart Won't Lie was first tried as a duet with Kenny Rogers, but the two could never find a key that suited them both, so Reba cut it with Gill and topped the chart for two weeks that April.

In her 2023 Lifetime film The Hammer, Reba's character takes which job in rural Nevada?

A traveling judge is what Reba's Kim Wheeler becomes, a part modeled on Nevada's real Kim Wanker, one of the last jurists in America to ride a circuit between far-flung rural courtrooms.