Toby Keith

Did You Know?

• Keith played defensive end on the football team at Moore High School in Oklahoma.
• He appeared at the first TNA Wrestling weekly pay-per-view on June 19, 2002, and eliminated Jeff Jarrett from the Gauntlet for the Gold main event.
• Keith participated in the Comedy Central Roast of Larry the Cable Guy in 2009.

Musical career

Keith went to Nashville and busked along Music Row without success until producer Harold Shedd signed him to Mercury Records after a flight attendant who was a fan gave Shedd a copy of Keith's demo tape. His debut single, "Should've Been a Cowboy," reached number one on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in 1993 and also charted on the Hot 100. The self-titled debut album was certified platinum by the RIAA and produced three more Top 5 hits: "He Ain't Worth Missing" (number five), "A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action" (originally the B-side of the debut single), and "Wish I Didn't Know Now" (both number two).

Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic described the album's production as oversized for early-1990s radio but noted strong songs beneath the gloss. The album's success led to tours with Shania Twain and John Brannen. Keith then moved to Polydor Records Nashville and released his second album, Boomtown, in September 1994. Also certified platinum, it was led by the number-one single "Who's That Man."

Follow-up singles "Upstairs Downtown" and "You Ain't Much Fun" reached the Top 10, while "Big Ol' Truck" peaked at number 15. For the 1995 holiday season, he released his first Christmas album, Christmas to Christmas, on Mercury, composed entirely of original songs; its single "Santa I'm Right Here" reached number 50 based on Christmas airplay.

Business ventures

In 2005, Keith launched his first three Toby Keith's I Love This Bar & Grill locations in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Syracuse. The chain later grew through a franchise deal with Capri Restaurant Group Enterprises LLC, based in Scottsdale, Arizona, which bought the master license to open more restaurants across the country. The first new franchise spot opened in Mesa, Arizona, and others followed in places like Pittsburgh, Auburn Hills, St. Louis Park, Thackerville, Kansas City, Las Vegas, Peoria, Foxborough, Cincinnati, Newport News, and Denver.

The business fell apart during the 2010s, and by 2020, court rulings across the country had ordered Capri and his companies to pay tens of millions of dollars in civil judgments. It came out that Capri was a former mobster who used Keith's restaurants, along with Rascal Flatts-branded ones, to cheat developers. In 2009, Keith started a clothing line called TK Steelman. His music career and other businesses made him one of the richest celebrities in the U.S. Forbes put him on its July 15, 2013, cover with the headline "Country Music's $500 million man."

The magazine reported he made $65 million in the previous year and had earned at least $48 million annually for the five years before that.

Political beliefs

Keith made numerous trips to the Middle East starting in 2002 to perform for U.S. military personnel. He stated that his father, a soldier, taught him to respect veterans. In 2004, Keith called himself "a conservative Democrat who is sometimes embarrassed for his party" and endorsed the re-election of President George W. Bush, performing at a Dallas rally the night before the election. He also endorsed Democrat Dan Boren in his successful run for Oklahoma's 2nd congressional district and was friends with former Democratic New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

In a January 2007 interview with Newsday, Keith said he never supported the Iraq War and favored setting a time limit on the campaign. He added that if being patriotic and supporting troops is socially incorrect, critics could "kiss my ass on that." In April 2008, he described Barack Obama as "a great speaker and a great leader" and said John McCain was "a great option too." By August 2008, he called Obama "the best Democratic candidate we've had since Bill Clinton."

In October 2008, Keith told CMT he had left the Democratic Party and re-registered as an independent, saying the party no longer stood for what he stood for. He indicated he would likely vote for the Republican ticket, partly due to his admiration for Sarah Palin.

Personal life and death

Toby Keith married Tricia Lucus on March 24, 1984, and the couple had three children, including daughter Krystal. His father, H. K. Covel, died on March 24, 2001, when a charter bus hit his car on Interstate 35. On December 25, 2007, the Covel family received a $2.8 million wrongful death settlement after a court found the bus operators and their insurance company liable for not equipping the bus with working air brakes. Before music, Keith planned to become a petroleum engineer.

He was a devoted University of Oklahoma sports fan, frequently attending Sooners games and practices, and also loved professional wrestling—he sat in the front row at many WWE events in Oklahoma and performed "Courtesy of the Red, White, & Blue" at the first TNA Wrestling show on June 19, 2002. He rooted for the Pittsburgh Steelers and was a Free Will Baptist. In 2004, Keith helped start Ally's House, a cancer charity named after the young daughter of a former bandmate who died from Wilms' tumor.

He founded the Toby Keith Foundation in 2006 to build housing for pediatric cancer patients, and the OK Kids Korral opened in late 2013. The annual Toby Keith & Friends Golf Classic has raised over $15 million for the facility, which Keith called his greatest accomplishment in 2019. He also recorded a PSA for Little Kids Rock, a nonprofit supporting music education in public schools. In June 2022, Keith revealed he had been diagnosed with stomach cancer at the end of 2021 and had undergone chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery.

He described the battle as "pretty debilitating" in December 2022. Keith died in his sleep in Oklahoma on February 5, 2024, at age 62. Governor Kevin Stitt ordered U.S. and Oklahoma flags on state property flown at half-staff from February 6 until sunset the next day in his honor.