It all comes out in the wash, indeed.
When Miranda Lambert headed over to Good Morning America's New York studio to promote the Pistol Annies album Interstate Gospel on Nov. 2, 2018, she figured it would be a pretty routine promotional appearance: Sound check, hair and makeup, perform with bandmates Ashley Monroe and Angaleena Presley, leave.
And all of that did happen. But Lambert also met a cute cop who was on security detail that day, thanks to a little impromptu matchmaking within her inner circle.
"My girlfriends, the Annies, saw him and knew I might be ready to hang out with someone," Lambert told the New York Times a year later of how she and husband Brendan McLoughlin first got together. "They invited him to our show behind my back. They plucked him for me. My security guy Tom, he was in on it too. He said to me, 'He's here. And he's pretty.'"
Lambert added, "Now the Pistol Annies have three husbands, two ex-husbands, three children, a stepson and 23 animals. We've done a lot in nine years!"
Add to that a pile of accolades, including Lambert's 2023 People's Choice Country and CMA Awards nominations, and the math continues to look most promising.
"It's like some kinda Hallmark movie or something," the 40-year-old told CBS News in 2022. "Like, this redneck from Texas meets this, like, beautiful NYPD officer on the street in New York. But it actually happened that way."
And of course she didn't have designs on settling down so soon when she met McLoughlin, another round of relationship drama barely behind her at the time. But it didn't take long for the country music superstar to determine that he was the guy for her.
"When I turned 30, I started to take life in a new direction and really start to understand myself a little better," Lambert reflected to People in 2022. "And going through hard things obviously makes you get to know yourself better. When you get broken down pretty good, you look at the mirror and you go, 'I have to spend some time with me, learn who I am and what I want.' I got to a really good place with myself. Then I met my husband."
They married in Davidson County, Tenn., on Jan. 26, 2019, keeping their honeymoon period to themselves until Lambert revealed on Feb. 16 ("in honor of Valentine's Day," she wrote) that she'd gotten hitched, her Instagram announcement introducing the "love of my life" to the world just as they were photographed together out and about in New York. (Lambert was sporting a diamond on that finger, so there would have been questions.)
At some point between "I'm Miranda" and "I do," the three-time Grammy winner made her mother's famous meatloaf recipe for McLoughlin, "the one everyone brings a man home to mom for or calls and asks how to make when things are getting serious," she told Fox News Digital in April when she released her cookbook, Ya'll Eat Yet? Welcome to the Pretty B*tchin' Kitchen. "We joke that it's the meal that gets the ring, and it's worked for many of us."
But aside from sharing the occasional savory detail, Lambert has played their courtship cards close to the vest after having lived so much of her romantic life in the public eye—sometimes on purpose, as when she wove her heartbreak or hard-fought life experience into song, but other times not so much.
Lambert didn't shy away from the conclusion that her 2016 album The Weight of These Wings was heavily inspired by the end of her four-year marriage to Blake Shelton, but as she told the Washington Post when the lead single "Vice" came out, the raw emotion in the music was "not something new for me as an artist."
She continued, "I've done that in every record I've ever made. But I got a little bit more time, a little bit more reflection and a little more honesty on this one. Because I had a time in my life that wasn't my favorite. And I'm not afraid to share it."
Still, reflecting on that period years later, she admitted she "wasn't prepared" for the attention paid to her divorce, telling CBS News, "Well, I don't think anybody is. And it's not nice sometimes, but I think you got to take it with a grain of salt and know that I'm a singer-songwriter so luckily I can tell my whole truth."
Lambert does prefer to keep certain things to herself, however, which makes for a careful balancing act when it comes to sharing the highs and lows of life with her 4.8 million Instagram followers.
"I don't want all my posts to be about promoting something," she told Hits Daily Double in 2018, just months before she met McLoughlin. "I do want to let people in on my regular life, too; I'm just not very good at it. It makes me nervous, 'cause I'm private. I want to have some mystery, and I want people I'm fans of to have mystery, too."
Ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic allowed for more private time with her husband than either could have anticipated. Lambert shared on SiriusXM's The Storme Warren Show in 2021 that they used that break from her normally hectic schedule to "really, really, really get to know each other" after their whirlwind engagement.
During that time, "it was just us two with no distraction, at my farm outside of Nashville," she recalled. "And so I was really thankful for it because it made us really strong."
And by the fall of 2020, McLoughlin looked like he'd been working the land all his life, with or without a shirt.
"Make hay while the sun shines y'all!" Lambert captioned some shots of her honey among the hay bales. "Thanks @t_man_photo and Jerry for gettin the pony's all fed for the winter #haygirlhay #shirtlessfarmhusband."
She and McLoughlin, who retired from the police force in 2020, continue to split their time between Nashville and New York, where his young son from a previous relationship lives.
"I want to be open about how happy we are," Lambert told People, reflecting on her spouse immersing himself in her world. "I just don't give two s--ts about people's opinion of me, my marriage, my music or anything else. I just care that I'm being me. He jumped right into this lifestyle—there's a learning curve taking a New Yorker straight to the woods—but it was a big laugh."
Speaking of learning curves, she cracked to the NY Times in 2019 that she didn't quite know her way around the Big Apple yet but was "great at calling an Uber," adding, "I got lost one day, walked to the West Side Highway, and my Apple Watch said I'd walked 13 miles."
Presumably she's figured the city out since. But if not, at least she's getting in her steps.
McLoughlin's own Instagram goes only as far back as October 2020—"#CityGoesCountry," he captioned a photo of himself (fully clothed) on a horse—and he often uses the space to shout out his wife and share snaps from their adventures together, such as a St. Patrick's Day-timed trip to Ireland and traversing Arches National Park in Moab, Utah. (And sometimes he does shirtless pushups and hits record.)
"I can't tell you how thankful I am to stand beside you for yet another year around the sun," he wrote on Lambert's latest milestone birthday Nov. 10. "I'm the lucky one, because 40 has never looked so good. Don't change for anyone, you have touched so many lives, both human and animal. You bring smiles to every room you walk in. The world is much better place with you in it. The love that you show through your art, your love of dogs and your dedication to both family and friends is just the tip of the iceberg of exactly how big of heart you have. Your the most beautiful person inside and out."
Lambert also shares glimpses of their life together, her fall snaps including McLoughlin in "his happy place," making homemade pasta in their well-appointed kitchen and letting their dogs take over the couch. Their summer included a lakefront idyll and a rather magical-looking excursion to Switzerland, Austria and Germany (where Oktoberfest starts early).
And, naturally, her fourth-anniversary post last January maintained a certain running theme.
Explaining why she relished slipping shirtless snaps of McLoughlin into her tribute to holy matrimony, Lambert said she was simply doing the world a service.
"I believe that my job, given my [musical] gift, is take songs to the people," she told Fox News Digital at Clive Davis' Pre-Grammy Gala in February 2023, "so if you're given this gift you should take that to the people."
That being said, McLoughlin—who first walked the red carpet with Lambert at the 2019 ACM Awards—also looks pretty good in a suit.
"This is Brendan's second Grammys," Lambert noted of their fancy-date weekend in 2023. But with the 2021 Grammys being held outside, she continued, "the one he came to before two years ago was still a little bit weird. So this will be the first normal Grammys that he's been to with me."
Though she was nominated for four awards, the Palomino artist said she wasn't performing, "so this is our night to sit back and watch the show."
Asked what the key to being each other's forever-seatmate was, McLoughlin said, "If you can actually just sit on the couch and discuss what's on your mind and what's in your heart, makes everything so much easier."
But Lambert wouldn't want to sit with just anybody.
"It's nice to have a partner in that, someone by your side that supports you, loves you and believes in you," she told People. "He loves me for me. It's a really cool thing to have in my life."
Keep reading to see Miranda Lambert and Brendan McLoughlin's storybook romance in photos:
Miranda's Main Squeeze
The newlyweds made their red carpet debut as a married couple at the 2019 Academy of Country Music Awards.
Quick Change Artist
Same night, different dress.
Repeat Performance
The first red carpet went so well, Brendan got a call-back for the 2019 CMA Awards.
Taking Manhattan
They said "I do" on Jan. 26, 2019, in Tennessee just a few months after meeting in New York.
Cozy Couple
Our hearts are warmer just looking at this photo Miranda posted on Valentine's Day 2021.
The Country Mouse & the City Mouse
Brendan looks right at home next to Miranda's down-home style at the 2021 ACM Awards.
Take My Breath Away
The pair paid homage to Top Gun for Halloween in 2021.
Cheers to Us
They went right to the source to celebrate St. Patrick's Day in 2022.
Glamping in Style
Sometimes you've just got to pile into the Airstream and hit the road.
Quite the Pair
By the 2022 CMT Music Awards, the couple were only getting cuter.
Sin City
They don't need Vegas to light up each other's lives, but it's still a pretty place to pass through when it's all decorated for Christmas.
You Spin Me Right Round
A little heavy metal went a long way for Miranda's 2023 Grammys look.
A Few of Their Favorite Things
They capped off a European vacation in September 2023 with a stop in Munich—where they were not too early for Oktoberfest.
(Originally published Sept. 27, 2023, at 5 a.m. PT)