Two years after marrying, country music composer Kyle Jacobs, 36, committed suicide. Kellie Pickler is devastated. He was 49.
When authorities responded to a 911 call from the couple’s home on a Friday afternoon, they found Jacobs dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in an upstairs bedroom/office, as verified to The Post by Don Aaron, a spokesman for the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department.
Law enforcement officials are investigating whether or not his death was intentional.
After waking up, Pickler said she sought her husband, but couldn’t find him; Aaron corroborated her account. Neither she nor her assistant was allowed to enter the room where they found Jacobs, so the latter called 911.
Pickler’s representatives have been contacted by Post for comment.
Following his birth on June 26, 1973, Jacobs spent his childhood in Minnesota. In the 2007 Top 10 hit “More Than A Memory,” he sang a duet with Garth Brooks. He worked with the Eli Young Band on “Dust” and Tim McGraw on “Still.”
His songs have been covered by a wide variety of musicians, including Kellie Clarkson, George Strait, Thompson Square, Jo Dee Messina, and even Kellie Pickler.
Despite this, Pickler’s meteoric rise to fame came despite her dismal sixth-place performance on the fifth season of “American Idol” in 2006.
A tough upbringing didn’t stop her from succeeding in life. She told Us Weekly in 2006 that her mother had handed her a knife and instructed her to kill herself.
When I stood in the kitchen with my mother, I distinctly recall thinking, “I wish God would take me away, I’d much rather be dead than live here with you.” She reached into her pocket, produced a knife, and said, “Here, do it then.” I first heard this expression when I was in the fourth grade. Even though I didn’t act on my feelings, they were deeply hurt.
In a bar in Nashville in 2007, Jacobs and Pickler met each other through mutual friends who were also songwriters.
On an episode of “The Real” from 2015, she described how they had sat down with him and his pals and gotten so into the conversation that they had forgotten about everyone else in the room.
They immediately began collaborating musically, with duets and solo tracks appearing on both of Pickler’s albums (2012’s “100 Proof” and 2013’s “The Woman I Am”). His name may be found in the credits of such well-known songs as “Mother’s Day,” “The Woman I Am,” and “Bonnie and Clyde.”
People magazine quoted Pickler as saying in 2008 of her then-boyfriend Kyle: “I didn’t realize someone like Kyle existed.”
What he does to my self-esteem is nothing short of miraculous. I’d never seen a happy couple before. My parents seldom spent time together outside of the courts. Whenever I’m having a hard time and think, “I need a Xanax!” Without thinking twice, Kyle says, “Let me be your pill, honey.” That’s the most calming noise ever.
On January 1, 2011, they ran away to Antigua. Kyle and I had been planning an expensive wedding together until we both realized, “Honey, this ain’t us.” Therefore, I responded, “Let’s just get away,” as Pickler recalls him saying.
She and her dance partner, Derek Hough, won Season 16 of “Dancing with the Stars” in 2013.
The episode included a rumba performed by Pickler and Hough to “Say I Do,” a song created and performed by Jacobs for the competition. Before taking the stage, Pickler said of the song, “That song is my life, it’s our tale.”
On his Twitter bio, Jacobs writes, “I’m happily married to my closest pal.” From 2015 to 2017, they starred in a three-season reality show called “I Love Kellie Pickler,” which aired on CMT.
To be in his presence is to experience pure joy. “When I’m with him, I feel like a million bucks,” Pickler gushed to The Boot in 2021. In several statements, he has shown his desire for me in my “natural” form (i.e., with no makeup and sweats). Being in his company makes me feel most beautiful. He doesn’t care what I wear as long as I am healthy.
Several people in the country music industry took to social media on Friday to mourn the death of Jacobs.
Kellie Pickler’s husband, Nashville songwriter, and producer Kyle Jacobs have passed away, and the Academy is “greatly saddened” by the news. To recognize his work on Lee Brice’s “I Drive Your Truck,” Jacobs was honored with an Academy of Country Music Award in 2014. The Academy of Country Music tweeted its condolences, asking its followers to “join us in sending condolences, love, and healing” to the family.
CMT, the show’s broadcaster, sent sympathies to Kellie Pickler and the Jacobs family.