A love story with an atypical beginning. Brandi Carlile and his wife, Catherine Bergerfirst struck up a relationship over the phone – but it wasn’t long before they also got along well in person.
The Grammy winner and the UK native met in 2009 while Shepherd was working for Paul McCartney, coordinating its charitable action. Carlile and his future wife talked on the phone for a year before finally meeting in person.
“A lot of it was about activism and charity,” THE broken horses the author recalled of those early days in an interview with Howard Stern in October 2021. “But one day, something just changed.”
Member Highwomen has a distinct memory of when she made she considered Shepherd more than a friend. Carlile was on tour in Vermont when Shepherd came to visit him in his tour bus. “I hadn’t seen her for six or seven months and I had ended my [previous] relationship,” the “Right on Time” singer told Stern. “I saw her at the front door and it was like, ‘This is it. Everything is different. No day will ever be the same. I was just changed. I was totally in love with her, absolutely in love with her.
The couple married in September 2012 in what Carlile described as a “ruined barn” near Seattle. “It was truly one of our best days, completely awkward and human and beautiful,” the “You and Me on the Rock” crooner wrote via Facebook a month after the nuptials. “I’m married to my best friend and nothing has ever brought me more joy than that.”
In 2014, the duo welcomed their first daughter, Evangeline, who later became the main subject of one of Carlile’s songs. Their second child, daughter Elijah, arrived in 2018. In a essay 2021 for Parents magazinethe CMT Music Award winner explained how she and Shepherd navigated their journey to parenthood as members of the LGBTQ+ community.
“For my wife and I, every part of our emergence into the world of parenthood was intentional and always felt a bit like walking on thin ice blindfolded,” Carlile wrote, adding that Shepherd was carrying their two children. “It was complicated because I didn’t know who I was supposed to be in this equation. I knew I wasn’t “daddy”, but I wasn’t pregnant either. Catherine was uncomfortable with everything that was happening to her body, and the whole concept felt so alien to us.
Eventually, however, the couple found a rhythm that suited their family. “The way we approach parenthood now feels instinctive, even natural,” Carlile explained. “We divide the tasks according to what seems important to us at the time, and not according to society’s expectations of moms and dads.”
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Keep scrolling for the full timeline of Carlile and Shepherd’s relationship: