Before Luke Combs became the certified country star he is today — performing at NBC’s Opry 100: A Live Celebration and stacking up wins at the People’s Choice Country Awards — he was falling in love with his wife, Nicole Hocking.
How to Watch
Watch Opry 100: A Live Celebration on Peacock.
In the years since they first met, Combs has written chart-topping country music hits about the leading lady in his life and the two children they’ve welcomed together. Read on to learn all about Combs’ sweet family, how he met his wife, their adorable sons, and more.
Luke Combs met his wife Nicole Hocking before he was famous
Combs met his wife, Nicole Hocking, in 2016 at a music festival for songwriters in Florida. She was working at the event for Broadcast Music Inc. and Combs was one of the performers, and the “When It Rains It Pours” singer remembers exactly what he was wearing.
“I was wearing camo gym shorts from Walmart,” Combs said during an appearance on Shawn Johnson and Andrew East’s podcast, Couple Things. “Classy, classy stuff … And like the oldest T-shirt that I owned.”
“It had holes in it,” Hocking recalled, adding that she approached him first. “We were both single. I was leaving a songwriters round and he was walking up late to it. I was just like, ‘Hey, come hang out with us, why are you by yourself?’”
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They hung out all night, got to know each other, and the rest is history. “I met my wife before I had anything going on,” Combs told ABC Audio. “I was driving the same car I drove in high school and [had] no shows.”
Two years after they started dating, Combs announced on Instagram that they were engaged. “She said yes a while ago, but this is a way better place to take pictures than the kitchen,” he captioned a photo of them in front of a sunset. He later told Nashville Lifestyles he proposed on the day they moved into their first house together, surrounded by moving boxes.
The couple got married on August 1, 2020 at their home in Florida. On their fourth wedding anniversary, Combs wrote on Instagram that he married “the woman of my dreams” and said his wife “changed my world for the better in so many ways I can’t even begin to put it in words.”
Luke Combs wrote “Beautiful Crazy” for his wife
In 2018, the North Carolina native released his hit song “Beautiful Crazy” as a bonus track on his debut album This One’s for You. Combs had shared a video of himself performing “Beautiful Crazy” on social media to see what his fans thought and, within weeks of its radio release, the song was topping Billboard charts.
Combs later revealed on Lindsay Czarniak’s podcast The Artist and The Athlete that he wrote “Beautiful Crazy” about his wife just months after they first met.
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“I wrote that song about my wife before we were even dating [and it ended up being] the first dance at our wedding,” he said during the March 2021 episode. “There’s no way that any other song will top that as far as sentimental value for me.”
Throughout “Beautiful Crazy,” Combs sings lyrics about falling in love with Hocking. As he sings in the chorus: “Beautiful, crazy / She can’t help but amaze me / The way that she dances / Ain’t afraid to take chances / And wears her heart on her sleeve / Yeah, she’s crazy/ But her crazy’s beautiful to me.”
Combs said on The Artist and The Athlete podcast that he’s especially proud of this love song. “I’m not much of a ladies’ man, but I was pretty proud of this one. I had written it maybe two days before [I played it for her],” he said, adding that writing the song for Hocking was a “total baller move.”
How many kids does Luke Combs have?
Combs is a proud dad of two sons, Tex and Beau, with his wife Nicole.
The couple welcomed their first son, Tex Lawrence Combs, on June 19, 2022. Shortly after his birth, Hocking revealed, per iHeartCountry, that they named their first son after two family members: Combs’ great uncle’s name is Tex and her father’s name is Lawrence.
About a year later, Hocking gave birth to their second son, Beau Lee Combs, on August 15, 2023, weeks before her due date. Combs was on tour in Australia at the time, and the country star shared that he sadly missed the birth. “[A text from Nicole] said, ‘I’m so sorry, I really tried to not have the baby while you’re gone,’” Combs told Apple Music 1 host Zane Lowe in June 2024. “And God, dude, it sucked … I was supposed to be home and I wasn’t. That was real hard.”
Check out the post on Instagram
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Luke Combs’ children inspired his fifth studio album Fathers & Sons
Ahead of Father’s Day in 2024, Combs released his fifth studio album, Fathers & Sons, which he described as “a reflection” of his life as a dad to his boys and a tribute to the fathers in his life. “I’ve got two boys under two, so my life is dominated by the thoughts of being there for them,” Combs wrote in a message to fans on social media. “I want to be their dad first and foremost.”
The 12-track album features songs with heartfelt titles such as “Little Country Boys,” “The Man He Sees in Me,” and “Whoever You Turn Out to Be.”
Check out the post on Instagram
“I just had to do this project, though, because being a dad to my boys has been the main thing on my mind lately,” Combs’ message continued, adding that Fathers & Sons is different from his previous albums. “I know it’s probably not what everyone expected my next album to be, and I get that; I feel the same way in this not truly feeling like my next album. But being a dad is where life has taken me, and this album is a reflection of that in a song form.”
