Washington D.C., DC (Top40 Charts/ AARP) Grammy Award-winning power couple
Vince Gill and
Amy Grant risked more than their reputations to be together. The beloved duo -- a Contemporary Christian pop singer and a Country
Music Hall of Famer -- speak exclusively with AARP The Magazine in a revealing conversation about their journey to become a couple, diverse upbringings, and the key to making marriage last. "It was hard," Gill said on the public speculation following both his and Grant's divorces. "The kids, the popularity of our lives, a lot of tongues waggin'." Eleven years later, Gill and Grant find themselves more in love than ever.
The following are excerpts from the upcoming AARP The Magazine cover story featuring Vince Gill and Amy Grant, available online NOW with behind the scenes video footage of the cover photo shoot, at www.aarp.org/magazine.
Gill on his ongoing attraction to Grant
"What's funny is I see old photographs of Amy in her 20s, and she's much prettier these days. She still does it for me."
"It never fails to amaze me how captivating the sound of her voice is."
"We felt about music and we felt about fame and we felt about career the same. Which was, we kind of always just loved the music part of it and the other stuff just comes and goes..."
Gill on feeling his best at 50+
"I think it gets better, it feels better at 50 than it did at 40."
"Your muscles hurt a little more, you don't get around like you used to, but the trade off (is that), I wouldn't trade it for any other period of life."
Grant on her marriage to and divorce from gospel singer Gary Chapman
"It had been rocky from the get-go. I'd been holding steady for 15 years in something that was not easy to hold steady."
"[It was] awful. Awful! Killed me for him. How painful to be married to somebody you know is so captivated by another human being."
Grant on her instant connection with Gill
"I knew from the tips of my toes that he was unlike anybody I had ever met, and that I related to him on such a cellular level. I was just so overwhelmed by him as a person that I finally came up behind him and wrapped my arms around him and said, 'I've needed to do this all night.' "
"[Vince] just made a profound mark on me every time and confirmed there was somebody out there who gets me."
Gill on their struggle to be together
"We were both married, and though we were crazy about each other, we thought, 'Well that's not our life.'"
"The hard truth was that we never thought for a minute that we would end up together."
Gill on defying age stereotypes
"The past pales in comparison to what I am doing now. I feel reborn, in a sense."
Grant on being in love now
"Having that baby at 40 really shot my stomach, and I was just having a good cry about it. Vince came in, and I was drooling and snot was coming out, and I said, 'Women get invisible.' And he said, 'I love you, and you're more beautiful now than you were when I first met you. I can't wait to see what you look like with a head full of gray hair.' And he meant it."
Gill on Grant's habits
"She can't multitask. She'll start the bathwater and then forget it."
Gill on the birth of their daughter Corrina
"[She's] the glue of this whole family. She bonded all of us in a blood way that really did connect us."
Grant on what life would be without Gill
"Oh, my goodness. I would miss him every day."
