Country fans helped Jimmie Allen celebrate his marriage to Alexis Gale in May of 2021, with the hit maker sharing gorgeous photos of a picturesque wedding and his beautiful bride. But in a new twist, he now says it was all for show.
He and Gale were actually married a year earlier.
Opening up to People for the magazine’s family issue, Allen and Gale admitted they got married in secret in 2020.
“We haven’t officially announced this, but we’ve actually been married for a year,” Gale said. “We got married on his birthday — June 18 — last year. Actually being publicly Mr. and Mrs. has been really exciting! I thought it was going to be the same, but I feel like it’s a new honeymoon stage for us. We get to wear our rings out in public.”
The couple wanted to keep their vows private, and then celebrate with a bigger, public ceremony later on. But according to Allen, he never thought he would be walking down the aisle again at all.
“I wanted to be a dad and do music, that’s it,” he said. “I never wanted to get married. The whole husband thing was not something I ever wanted to do. But Alexis changed that. Now, I like it. It gives me some security — she can’t just be like, ‘I’m done.’ Divorce is a lot of paperwork!”
For the story, Jimmie Allen and Gale talked about the challenges of parenting (and the fun), and how Allen’s new My Voice Is a Trumpet children’s book came to be. But they also opened up about how they met, noting Gale is a nurse and the pair were introduced through Allen’s cousin. Although he was initially shy, the country star eventually took his “Best Shot,” and ended up helping Gale study for a big nursing exam.
“[He] took the time, right before he went on tour, to study with me even though he had no idea what he was doing,” Gale explained. “And it made me realize — this is someone who really cares about me, who cares about my future even though he’s still working on his.”
Allen is dad to seven-year-old son Aadyn from a previous marriage, and he and Gale welcomed their daughter Naomi Bettie in March 2020. The couple is currently expecting their second daughter.
Meanwhile, this is not the first time a country star has kept their actual marriage under wraps — and it’s not even the first revelation this month. Last week, Dan + Shay singer Shay Mooney and his wife, Hannah, revealed they too embarked on a stealth mission to get married in secret.