Trisha Yearwood Reveals How Writing Songs at Her and Garth Brooks’ Nashville Home Gave Her Courage To Pen an Album for Very First Time

Country music sensation Trisha Yearwood released her debut single more than 30 years ago—yet she is still checking off some major career milestones with the release of her latest album, “The Mirror,” which is the first record on which she wrote every single song.

Yearwood, 60, who is due to celebrate a very personal milestone this year when she marks her 20th wedding anniversary with husband Garth Brooks, 63, has a number of musical hits to her name, including “She’s in Love with the Boy,” “How Do I Live,” and “Walkaway Joe.”

Yet her new album may well be her most special, she has now admitted, because it represents a new chapter in both her life and her career—a chapter that she never thought she would have the chance to write.

According to Yearwood—who was born and raised in Monticello, GA, but has lived in Nashville, TN, for many years—when she was a 19-year-old student at Belmont University in Tennessee, she was told that she didn’t have a talent for songwriting—an opinion that she admits she “let be the truth” for decades.

“When I was 19 years old someone told me I wasn’t a songwriter, and I let that be the truth for a very long time,” she told The Monticello News.

“But at some point in the past few years, something shifted and I started writing and then just never stopped. You’d think that after all this time I’d have nothing new to share, but now I feel like I’m on a whole new adventure.”

A major part of that shift, Yearwood explained, was learning to embrace her talent in the safety and comfort of her Nashville home, as well as in writing rooms in the city, where she collaborated with a host of other local songwriters while putting together the tracks that make up “The Mirror,” she told Billboard.

“[I realized] I could now sing something even more personal than the songs I’ve sung in my career, but also, I can write these songs,” she explained.

“I’ve learned that all the apprehension I had about speaking my mind or saying, ‘What about this line?’ is that every songwriter feels that way. Even songwriters who have had 29 No. 1 records, I’ll hear them go, ‘This might be dumb, but what about…’ So, everybody feels the same sort of vulnerability.”

Yearwood went on to credit her sister, Beth Bernard, who is also her neighbor in Nashville, for being her “champion,” noting that her sibling “got to know some of the writers” she was collaborating with and was a constant “support” during the process of putting “The Mirror” together.

During a performance on the “Today” show, the songstress also opened up about her 20-year marriage to Brooks, whom she wed in December 2005, noting that she feels grateful to have been in such a long-term relationship with her “best friend.”

When asked about the secret to their decades-long romance, Yearwood noted that “a lot of laughing” has helped the pair to conquer any hurdles in their romance, adding: “And marrying your best friend, so even when you’re mad, you’re still best friends.”

Over the past year, the couple has faced more hurdles than most—after Brooks was accused of rape by Yearwood’s makeup artist in October 2024.

The woman, who is known only as Jane Doe, and is identified only as a professional makeup artist and hairstylist, filed a lawsuit with the California Supreme Court in Los Angeles on Oct. 3, accusing Brooks of rape and sexual assault.

Roe claimed that Brooks raped her in a hotel room in Los Angeles in May 2019, with her attorneys writing in the lawsuit: “Brooks rape of Ms. Roe was painful and traumatic. With cold disregard for Ms. Roe, when Brooks finished, it was business as usual. Ms. Roe worked quickly to style his hair and do his makeup for the event so he was on time.”

Brooks, who has an estimated net worth of between $300 million and $350 million, has vehemently denied the allegations, insisting in a statement to the broadcaster that he is the victim of targeted “threats and lies.”

He also alleged that his accuser had threatened to go public with her claims if he did not “write a check for many millions of dollars.”

“For the last two months, I have been hassled to no end with threats, lies, and tragic tales of what my future would be if I did not write a check for many millions of dollars,” he said.

“It has been like having a loaded gun waved in my face. Hush money, no matter how much or how little, is still hush money. In my mind, that means I am admitting to behavior I am incapable of—ugly acts no human should ever do to another,” he continued.

Brooks added that he and his wife had already filed a lawsuit against his accuser for extortion and defamation of character, explaining that he had chosen to do so “anonymously for the sake of families on both sides.”

According to multiple reports, both Brooks’ case against his accuser—which was filed in a Mississippi court—and her case against him are both still ongoing.

In the meantime, however, Yearwood and Brooks appear intent on carrying on with their lives and careers, with the former even hinting that she’s busy at work on even more songs that could well make up a “part two” of “The Mirror.”

“There’s so many songs that I’m still writing that there might have to be a part two,” she told Billboard.

The home where Yearwood brought her album to life is where she and her husband have been primarily based for many years, having built a property from the ground up on a huge plot of land in Nashville, which Brooks purchased in 2001.

Yearwood and Brooks previously owned another sprawling Tennessee pad; however, they sold that property for $3.3 million just one day before his rape accusation was made public.

The home, which is in Brentwood, TN, served as the filming set for more than 100 episodes of Yearwood’s popular cooking show, “Trisha’s Southern Kitchen,” having been purchased by the food expert back in 2000.

It was originally listed for sale in 2023, with an asking price of $4.5 million; however, after failing to attract a buyer, Yearwood and her spouse were forced to reduce their ask several times—first to $3.95 million, then to $3.8 million before finally securing an interested party.