Brandi Carlile and Wife Catherine Shepherd’s Relationship Timeline

One day before the release of Carlile’s eighth solo album, Returning to Myself, the singer-songwriter and her wife addressed rumors that the LP is actually about their divorce. 

“A journalist I won’t name recently came up to me and asked if this was a divorce album,” Shepherd said in a TalkShopLive video with Carlile. “So, I just wanted to clear something up before people hear this album and the rumor mill starts. Are we getting a divorce?” 

Carlile responded with laughter, saying, “No! Cringe.”

Shepherd went on to explain that two of Carlile’s new songs, “A Woman Oversees” and “Anniversary,” are probably what caused the speculation. “When Brandi wrote those songs, she was off in wherever she was and I was at home with the kids,” Shepherd recalled. “And she texted me late at night and she texted me these demos, and she said, ‘We’ll probably need to talk after you hear these songs.’ So, I heard them and I listened again and again, and they were so good that I didn’t wanna, like, get in the way of the process, so I just said, ‘We don’t need to talk, just keep writing.’”  

Carlile noted that Shepherd later said the two tracks were her wife’s “best songs,” and Shepherd agreed. 

“I think that speaks to your emotional depth and the fact that you’re an artist,” Carlile said to her partner. “You know that we write based on moments in time, snippets, moments of doubt, moments of pain, moments of fear, anticipation, and those moments are just snapshots. We capture ’em. It doesn’t mean that they’re in motion, it doesn’t mean that we carry them forward. But honoring the fact that the feeling is happening, that it was fleeting, I think is a really important part of songwriting.” 

The Grammy winner then quipped, “Also, I’ve gotten into your phone and seen some s*** you’ve said about me in your lyrics thing on your notes. So I know. Listen, we’re just real married people with real-life issues, loss, and the things that we struggle with in these moments of aging together. We don’t need to share them with the world, but also, why not?” 

Shepherd added, “It’s always unrequited love or the beginnings. People don’t ever talk about the middle or the struggle, and I think it’s so relatable.”