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Oct 22, 2025 11:07 AM EDT

Key Points

Reba McEntire and Rex Linn secretly got engaged on Christmas Eve 2024.
They delayed announcing the news for a specific reason.
The couple is enjoying their engagement.

When Reba McEntire got engaged to Rex Linn on Christmas Eve last year, but the couple decided to keep the news a secret. McEntire accidentally revealed the update on her love life at the 2025 Emmys in September.

Now, McEntire is sharing the reason that she and Linn decided to keep their joyous news to themselves.

“So we got engaged then, we were going to make the announcement when we got back to L.A. in January, and the fires happened. It wasn’t appropriate,” she explained to People magazine, adding that “the time never presented itself until the Emmys when it just happened.”

“I totally was thrilled to death. I asked him, ‘Well, when do you want to do this?’ He said, ‘Let’s have fun with the engagement time.’ So we haven’t set a date or anything. We’re just enjoying each other,” she continued.

McEntire, 70, and Linn, 68, have known one another for decades, but took their relationship from friendship to something romantic in 2020. McEntire was previously married to Charlie Battles from 1976 to 1987, and then to her manager Narvel Blackstock from 1989 to 2015. She’d go on to day Anthony Lasuzzo from 2017 through 2019.

In October 2023, McEntire told People that Linn was “a very supportive man” and added that she loved him “with all [her] heart.” During an appearance on Watch What Happens Live around the same time, McEntire said that she and Linn had talked about getting married. However, she put the ball completely in his court.

“That would be up to him. I’ve been married twice, he’s never been married, so if he wants to, that’s totally up to him,” she told host Andy Cohen, according to NBC News.

Following the couple’s engagement, there has been an increase in curiosity surrounding their upcoming wedding. And while McEntire and Linn seem to be taking things one day at a time as they enjoy their engagement, there have been plenty of rumors — and AI generated photos — of a wedding that has yet to happen.