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Country star Thomas Rhett<\/strong> says he\u2019s never heard the phrase \u201cwife guy\u201d before, but he has a pretty intuitive understanding of the phenomenon, the all-purpose internet descriptor for what happens when a marriage becomes a part of a meme. \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve seen some of those, and some of them make me really cringe,\u201d the singer, born Thomas Rhett Akins, tells Vanity Fair<\/em> a few days before the release of his seventh studio album, About a Woman.<\/em> \u201cThe whole setting your phone on your dashboard and saying, \u2018I\u2019m playing this song for my wife for the first time\u2019? I\u2019m like, No, you\u2019re not.\u201d<\/p>\n So while Rhett doesn\u2019t want to be one of those viral wife guys, he admits that his wife, Lauren Akins,<\/strong> is a big part of his persona, publicly and privately. \u201cA lot of the things I am today are because of her, and so many of my personality traits were not what they are today 10 years ago,\u201d he says. \u201cShe loves so deeply and so hard, and I\u2019m a very passionate human being, so we kind of do everything a million percent. I think that\u2019s why it\u2019s so easy to write about her.\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cwoman\u201d in About a Woman<\/em> is obviously Lauren, the childhood friend he married in 2012. If you don\u2019t know Thomas Rhett for the 20 Country Airplay number ones he\u2019s netted in the last decade, you might know him for the picture-perfect family snapshots shared by the couple on Instagram. On the new record, Rhett delivers a tight collection of pop-country love songs inspired by his nearly 12-year marriage, written and recorded with the hopes that they\u2019ll be something his wife and four daughters can dance to.<\/p>\n Rhett thinks he succeeded, and Lauren has been participating in this promotional cycle like never before. \u201cIt\u2019s her favorite record that I\u2019ve made, because it is uptempo and even the songs that aren\u2019t uptempo, they have a bounce and they\u2019ve got a swagger to \u2019em,\u201d he says. \u201cI think she appreciates lyrics, but she\u2019s more drawn to melody. We focused more on melody on this project than we ever have in the past, which was a huge change in pace for me because I\u2019m such a lyric person. I obsess over lyrics and wordplay and how to flip stuff. And so I wanted to go in and make songs that felt simpler.\u201d<\/p>\n On his quest to create danceable music, he tapped two friends and longtime collaborators to produce, Dann Huff<\/strong> and Julian Bunetta.<\/strong> Rhett said Bunetta, a songwriter and producer who got his start working on some of One Direction\u2019s hits, in particular helped him focus on making something less cerebral. \u201cIn the past I\u2019ve always had to have this crazy-deep answer for why I chose a song,\u201d Rhett says. \u201cJulian was a great adviser on this project. He would ask, Well, do you love it? I\u2019m like, Yeah. He\u2019s like, Why? I\u2019m like, I don\u2019t know. I think I\u2019ve learned that that is an okay-enough answer for a song rather than being like, Well, there was this wildflower that I saw when I was driving from Austin to Tupelo.\u201d<\/p>\n Bunetta has been working with Rhett since 2016, but as the two wrote songs in 2023, Bunetta was also working on a few different projects that would make him one of pop music\u2019s most in-demand names\u2014\u201cEspresso\u201d by Sabrina Carpenter<\/strong> and \u201cLose Control\u201d by Teddy Swims.<\/strong> Bunetta\u2019s disco sheen blankets the record without clouding Rhett\u2019s country croon, giving even the songs that feel like outtakes from Elvis or the Rolling Stones a modern glow.<\/p>\n Rhett was writing love songs for Lauren years before it became a part of his identity as an artist. \u201cIt never was a strategy for me. It never was like, Maybe I can make marriage cool and love cool,\u201d he says. \u201cWhen I sat down at a piano or guitar, that\u2019s just what came out. My dad always told me to write about what I know the best, and I know her the best.\u201d<\/p>\n One of those love songs, \u201cDie a Happy Man,\u201d off his 2015 album, came along with a video that starred Lauren. It won song of the year at the Academy of Country Music Awards, got Rhett noticed outside of the genre for the first time, and turned Lauren into a public figure. She\u2019s a natural in front of the camera\u2014she\u2019s got a winning smile and a speaking voice that draws a listener in\u2014but this isn\u2019t exactly where she was hoping to be after she graduated from the University of Tennessee with a nursing degree more than a decade ago.<\/p>\n The couple tied the knot after Rhett signed a record deal but before his career took off, and neither he nor Lauren really expected that he would find lasting success in the industry. \u201cThere was a part of her that probably was like, Oh, we will do this for a couple years, and then he\u2019ll get a normal job and I\u2019ll be a nurse,\u201d he says. His career took off incredibly quickly, however, and eventually those plans changed. \u201cWhen our marriage counselor said that [Lauren] should tour with me for the whole first year, I think it broke her heart a little bit because she had spent the last five years grinding. I think she saw herself working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. in a hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n