Luke Bryan Adopted His Sister's Children When She Died

Photo: John Shearer/ACMA2019/Getty Images for ACM

Luke Bryan, a well known Country star has undergone an unimaginable disaster, despite this, he found room in his heart to make it better.

Bryan grew up the youngest of three kids in a close family.

“I was raised in a small town with parents that — when I wasn’t acting right — they reeled me back in,” he told Robin Roberts in a 2017 ABC News special.

Despite his fame he was unprepared for tragedy

Bryan's mucis career was just taking off, when his life suddenly changed.

“Just before I moved to Nashville, my brother was killed in a car accident,” Bryan recalled.

Understandably, his career plans were put to the wayside in his period of grief.

At the time, Bryan was just 19 years old. He gave up his music career plans temporarily to support his shocked family.

“My dad could tell I was one foot in the door, one foot out the door, We had seen how fragile life was.” he said.

Bryan packed his bags soon after and moved to Nashville, where he quickly got a record deal and fell in love with Caroline Boyer, who he married in 2006.

❝ Bryan would see her for the last time ❞

Kelly passed away a month later, leaving his brother-in-law, Ben Lee Cheshire, raising their three children.

Without any notice, disaster would strike again

In 2015, Bryan’s brother-in-law Ben died as well and then Bryan and his wife ended up adopting his sister’s three children.

“Now we have three children that have lost both their parents, so that becomes our new focus, to try to navigate and guide them through this life,” Bryan explained.  

“We never thought twice about it,” Caroline told ABC News. “We just did it.”

The siblings and cousins adapted quickly into a new form of family and it was beautiful to see how they all came together in the face of tragedy.

“Bo went from being kind of the alpha male to being the middle child, but he takes it in stride,” Bryan told People in a 2015 interview. “It’s been amazing watching them do so well with it.

Bryan told People in 2017, “It’s a challenge because my main thing with Til is just properly giving the right amount of advice and realizing you’re talking to someone who is becoming an adult.

I have to be that parent role where if he does something, he needs to get in trouble, but I want to be a friend to him too.”

Now, he considers his sister’s children to be his own and rather than being bitter at all the tragedy and loss that hit one family, he’s learned to appreciate all his gifts just a little bit more.

Lessons Luke learned

“I’ve watched my family go through ebbs and flows where we get mad at God and we get mad at why this has happened,” he told People.

“You’ll never get back to 100 percent. You’ll always be working to get back to 75 percent.”

“Obviously my nieces and nephew, they didn’t ask for this,” Bryan said.

“Their life was amazing before Caroline and I took a more prominent role, even after losing their mother. Now my focus is trying to do what we can to help them.”

Luke Brian’s unusual journey to an unexpected family is a powerful lesson about powering through grief and the beautiful things that can come from opening our hearts and our homes to those who need help.

He never gave up on his dreams or on his family, and was able to build a beautiful life because of that.