Trace Adkins details being shot by his ex-wife during heated argument
Trace Adkins reflected on being shot by his ex-wife Julie Curtis during a domestic dispute in 1994.
“That took it a little far, I thought,” the country singer quipped on Tuesday’s episode of the “This Past Weekend with Theo Von” podcast.
“That was uncalled for. That was totally uncalled for,” he joked of the incident. “Just leave. Let’s just call it quits and we don’t have to go that far.”
Adkins, 64, said he’s always believed Curtis, who was his second wife, didn’t mean to shoot him when they were arguing about his drinking.
“I don’t think she even had any idea what that gun was gonna do,” he explained. “I’d never seen her hold a gun, I’d never seen her shoot a gun. I knew she had one, but I’d never seen her use it.”
“I don’t think she knew what was about to happen when she pulled that trigger. She thought it was a toy.”
The “Honky Tonk Badonkadonk” singer recalled that his then-wife was “mad” at him for refusing to leave the house, which led to her shooting him under his left arm.
Adkins revealed the bullet “went straight through my heart and both my lungs” and came out through his right arm.
“I just remember getting off the floor, taking a few steps and then going back down,” he said of the moments after he was shot. “That’s all I remember.”
Adkins said when he was airlifted to Vanderbilt University Medical Center, doctors told him he only survived because he was shot “at point blank velocity,” so the bullet “didn’t have time to mushroom.”
The “Celebrity Apprentice” alum explained that the worst part of the incident was recovering from the emergency open-heart surgery.
“The recovery from something like that, that hurts,” he shared. “They don’t care, they just stretch everything and break stuff. They’re just trying to get to your heart to save your life.”
Adkins, who didn’t press charges against Curtis and got divorced from her later that year, revealed he’s forgiven his ex-wife for shooting him.
“I’ve just always felt like I don’t think she meant to do it,” he said. “I just don’t think she thought it was gonna hurt me. She thought I was indestructible.”
In 2022, Adkins told People he still goes to a heart doctor for regular checkups three decades after being shot.
“It was painful, but it didn’t sear my memory,” he shared, adding, “The physical pain — broken bones and surgeries and bullets and getting beat up and cut — has never really bothered me. I have a high tolerance for it. It’s the broken hearts that left the deepest scars.”
Adkins’ first marriage was to Barbara Lewis, with whom he welcomed two daughters.
After his divorce from Curtis, Adkins got married for a third time to Rhonda Forlaw in 1997. They had three daughters together before divorcing in 2014.
Adkins has been married to his fourth wife, actress Victoria Pratt, since 2019.
