On a quiet Christmas Eve in December 2024, Rex Linn slipped a black diamond ring onto Reba McEntire finger and closed a circle that had taken 33 years to complete.
It was not a whirlwind romance built in a single season. It was a love story built over nearly three decades of friendship, grief, distance and one unforgettable plate of tater tots.
Their story began in 1991 on the location set of Kenny Rogers television movie The Gambler Returns The Luck of the Draw. McEntire carried a leading role as Burgundy Jones while Linn played a supporting role as a henchman named Henry.
Both already shared deep roots in Oklahoma and Texas before the cameras ever rolled. McEntire had grown up on an Oklahoma cattle ranch. Linn had been born in Spearman, Texas and raised in Oklahoma City after his family moved there in 1969. Before acting he had worked in an oil field and at a local bank and then moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting full time.
On set they bonded at once over their shared Southwestern upbringing and mutual friends in the industry. At the time McEntire was married to her manager Narvel Blackstock while Linn was building a screen career that would soon include Cliffhanger and Wyatt Earp and a long run as Detective Frank Tripp on CSI Miami.
For the next 29 years their connection stayed a warm, long distance friendship. When their work overlapped in Los Angeles or Nashville they exchanged messages or simply said hello, watching from afar as their separate careers and personal lives went through major changes.
McEntire divorced Blackstock in 2015 after 26 years of marriage. She later dated retired oil geologist Anthony Skeeter Lasuzzo from 2017 until the fall of 2019. By early 2020 both she and Linn were single.
That winter McEntire traveled to California to film a guest appearance as hairstylist June Ballard on the CBS sitcom Young Sheldon. Linn was already a recurring cast member as high school principal Tom Petersen alongside McEntire longtime Reba co-star Melissa Peterman. Knowing she was coming to town for the taping in late January 2020, Linn texted her to ask if she wanted to meet for dinner.
After dinner together in Los Angeles the group walked down the street to a wine bar. When the server mentioned appetizers including tater tots, McEntire raised her hand right away to order a plate. Linn told her from that night forward her nickname would be Tater Tot. She answered back at once by naming him Sugar Tot.
Tater Tot and Sugar Tot, two names born from one joyful night that neither of them could have known would change everything
Weeks after that evening McEntire learned that her mother Jacqueline had suffered a stroke and was in declining health. Almost at the same time nationwide COVID-19 shutdowns arrived in March 2020. After Jacqueline passed away on March 14, 2020, McEntire quarantined in Oklahoma with her sister Susie to clean out their parents house.
Separated across states with travel halted, Linn called McEntire every morning to check on her. Their daily routine became known as Coffee Camp, hours spent talking by phone and FaceTime through her darkest months of grief. He stayed on the line, shared meals over video calls and simply listened when words were hard to find.
Knowing the sisters were spending long days sorting through family belongings, Linn also began mailing food packages to Susie house in Oklahoma. Almost every day another delivery arrived at the door, including Perini Ranch steaks from Texas, lobster tails, pecan pie and pints of McConnell’s ice cream that Susie rationed out to one scoop a night while they watched television.
By the time travel restrictions eased enough for them to reunite in person in June 2020, the 29 year friendship had quietly turned into a committed romance. They made their relationship public that October after a trip to Montana and walked the CMA Awards red carpet together in November 2020.
In 2024 the couple brought their partnership back to television when they co-starred in the NBC sitcom Happy’s Place, with McEntire playing tavern owner Bobbie and Linn playing the restaurant cook Emmett. Between scenes on set and backstage at her concerts and The Voice tapings, Linn became a constant presence waiting in the wings.
That steady presence became the heart of their story. Behind the scenes the actor she had met nearly three decades earlier is now the man waiting in the wings with a bottle of water and a steady embrace. On Christmas Eve in December 2024, 33 years after their first scenes together, Linn proposed with a black diamond ring. The two Oklahoma kids who stayed friends for nearly three decades are now planning a multi-day wedding on their farm surrounded by their horses, donkeys and dogs.