It can be hard on a mom when a baby is first born. Add another baby 14 months later, and things get a little wild. Now, imagine that mom caring for those two babies on a giant tour bus, lumbering across the country while their superstar dad performs night after night at packed concert venues.
“It was pretty crazy,” said Brittany Aldean, wife of country music star Jason Aldean, about the time when her children were born. “You have a little zip-up bunk that the infants sleep in. They are strapped in with Velcro, and you’re riding down the road and thinking, ‘What is happening right now?'”
Today, Brittany (36), Jason (46), their now-five-year-old son Memphis, and four-year-old daughter Navy spend much of their lives on a tour bus. For nearly five months a year, they hit the road every Wednesday night, returning home Sunday morning. (Shorter stints dot the rest of the year.) “It’s predominantly the kids’ bus,” said Brittany. Every nook and cranny is stuffed with toys and books. On concert nights, the kids get to stay up, watching Daddy perform from the wings.
Their days off are spent at their estate in Spring Hill, Tennessee, about 40 minutes south of Nashville, though their time there is fleeting. “Touring is extremely chaotic,” Brittany said. “There’s not a lot of time at home doing the normal things you do.”
This rock-star life has become the norm for the Aldeans. For Brittany, it wasn’t always this way.
Brittany grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, with her parents, an older sister, and a younger brother. She describes her family as a boisterous bunch, which she attributes to their partly Italian heritage. “It’s loud with a lot of hands and a lot of storytelling.” She said Jason, raised mainly as an only child, was surprised by the sheer volume they produce at family gatherings.
During her childhood, Brittany and her family spent weekends in the country on a small piece of land they owned on Lake Tillery. “We basically had everything but a house there.” They had a boat, jet skis, and all the fun water toys. No bathroom, and plenty of bugs. They swam and played outside all day and roasted marshmallows at night. They slept in a tent or on the boat. “We made it an adventure every single weekend.”
Brittany and her siblings went to a large high school in Charlotte where she was involved in as much as she could manage: student council, swimming, softball, basketball, and cheerleading. Everyone in her family, except her mother, received black belts in Taekwondo.
When it came time for college, Brittany, a bit of a rebel, wanted to branch out. Her sister and brother and most of her friends stayed in North Carolina, which has plenty of top-notch schools, but she set her heart on the University of Alabama. She loved the campus and the raucous school spirit.
She cobbled together her tuition with grants and loans. She flipped between majors, never landing on anything she felt committed to. After graduation, she had a bachelor’s degree, a great experience, and a boatload of student debt.
She headed back to Charlotte to figure out what was next.
Back home, she took odds-and-ends jobs to bring in some cash and start paying on her loans. “I’ve always been a really hard worker, always had an income, and tried to make, you know, all the money,” Brittany said.
Around 2010, she got a gig as a dancer for Charlotte’s basketball team, which put her in a spotlight she had shied away from, performing in front of thousands of fans every night. When the NBA went on strike in 2011, on a whim, she decided to try out for the television show American Idol, something that was entirely out of character for her. “I have a huge fear of public speaking,” she confessed. “It’s almost debilitating for me. The fact that I even did American Idol was kind of a God thing, which now makes sense because it also led me to Jason.”
Although she didn’t make it to the televised competition, her audition was included in one of the season’s early episodes, watched by millions of people. Someone she met on American Idol invited her to Los Angeles to give her singing a shot. “I was always the one who wanted to go on any journey that came my way,” she said. She uprooted her life in Charlotte to see what she could discover in the Hollywood Hills.
What she found at first was a culture shock. L.A. was vastly different from the Southern way of life she was accustomed to. “Back home, we smile at each other in the streets. We want to get to know each other,” she said. The people she met in L.A. seemed focused on networking and what each person could do for them.
The singing didn’t pan out, but Brittany spent about two years in L.A. and Las Vegas bartending and reeling in money to chip away at those pesky student loans. During this time, she and Jason began dating. They were married in 2015. She moved back East with him to Tennessee and was launched into a life she never imagined.
From the start, Brittany felt like a deer in the headlights.”All of a sudden, I was dating and then marrying a superstar,” Brittany said. “And I had never been anywhere around anything like that.” Jason’s massive fame brought fortune, but it also came with a cost. “I wasn’t used to people videoing every move you make or taking photos of you when you’re out, just not being able to have anything private anymore.
“Honestly, it was the most difficult transition of my life,” Brittany said. “What got me through was that I adored this man.”
It wasn’t just the newfound celebrity that was jarring. Brittany had been living it up in her 20s, having fun, and working hard, but she was still searching for direction. Jason was a hugely successful musician running a multi-million-dollar company. “It made me think, well, you’ve been bartending and paying bills and loans for so long, but what are you actually going to do? I had to grow up pretty quickly.”
She struggled at first to find a place. She taught make-up classes while on tour. She promoted brands through her social media accounts, which had a modest following. But she really wanted to create something of her own. “I’m not happy just living in his world. I always felt that I needed my own career path. I feel it’s important for me to have my own thing going.”
Her prospects took a surprising turn after the 2020 election when her public political opinions catapulted her directly into the country’s culture wars. She traded social squabbles with a few prominent stars in the country world, garnering unexpected attention from national media outlets. After she started speaking out politically, her social media audience suddenly exploded. She now has 2.5 million followers on Instagram alone.
Capitalizing on this newfound attention, in November of 2021, she and Jason’s sister launched a conservative clothing and apparel line, called Brittany + Kasi. And although the Aldeans have received some backlash for expressing their personal opinions, their success has also grown because of it. “More often than not now, people stop us on the street, not about Jason’s music, but more so for our political stance,” said Brittany.
When they need to get away from it all — tour, publicity, politics — the family retreats to the beach. “The beach is Jason’s favorite place on earth,” said Brittany. “If we didn’t have to be in Nashville for work, we would definitely be on the ocean.”
In 202?, the two purchased a home in Stuart, located right on the Atlantic Ocean in southern Florida. The water is clear and blue, as Jason prefers. “He doesn’t want any of that murky lake-colored water,” Brittany said. “I’m more of a murky-water girl, but he wants to be able to see his feet.”
The Aldeans own homes in Tennessee, Turks and Caicos, one on a lake in North Georgia near Brittany’s family, and one in Florida by the beach. “Real estate has become a hobby for us,” Brittany said. They enjoy designing and decorating interiors. Each of their homes has a distinct vibe.
When they arrive at their Florida home, it feels peaceful, Brittany said. “We can disconnect from our phones and the hustle and bustle and just be with each other.” The interior is designed for big family meals and snuggling on the couch for movies or television shows. “We want it to feel almost like the house is giving you a hug.”
But the home’s highlight is the infinity pool overlooking the ocean. Brittany described a typical day spent hanging out there with family and friends. The kids play in the pool, and the adults sit in chairs, set right in the water. The view of the ocean is sweeping, the sound of the waves soothing. The music is playing, the food is out, the drinks are flowing.
“Not everyone lives this way. We are always trying to remind our kids of that,” Brittany said. “We are immensely grateful and thankful for the opportunities we have.”
Brittany Aldean’s journey from a carefree life of adventure in Charlotte to the structured chaos of touring with a country superstar has been a lesson in adaptability and resilience. As they navigate the complexities of fame, family, and personal ambition, the Aldeans have found their sanctuary in the simple pleasures of beach life and the bonds they share. Through it all, they remain a testament to the power of embracing change, finding balance, and finding themselves.
