By duyen be
“Scroll to the bottom of the article to watch the video.”
Introduction
For nearly five decades, Reba McEntire has been the epitome of grace, resilience, and warmth in country music. But behind the stadium-packing tours and the million-watt smile lies a history forged in the fiery crucible of the Grand Ole Opry, a world populated by giants who weren’t always gentle with the newcomers.
In a revealing video interview for an upcoming documentary special, a clip of which was shared exclusively with us, McEntire finally pulls back the curtain on the “five grudges” she has jokingly held against some of the Opry’s most revered legends. While delivered with a characteristic twinkle in her eye, the stories paint a vivid picture of a young artist fighting for her spot on country music’s most sacred stage.
The most jarring revelation centers on her Opry debut in 1977. Full of nerves and dreams, McEntire was scheduled for a two-song set, a monumental opportunity for any new artist. However, a last-minute shake-up involving another legend, Porter Wagoner, cut her moment in half.
“I was standing backstage, guitar in hand, heart beating out of my chest,” Reba recalled, her voice softening with the memory. “They came up to me and said, ‘I’m sorry, honey, Porter’s running long. You’re only gonna get one song tonight.’ I was just a kid from Oklahoma. To be told that by the king of the Opry himself… I thought my world was ending. I went back to my momma in the dressing room and just cried my eyes out. I swore that night I’d never forgive him for taking that song from me.”
The story, long a piece of insider Nashville lore, was confirmed by a source who was there from the very beginning. Jim “Bucky” Mitchell, McEntire’s band director for over 30 years, was a young session player at the time and witnessed the aftermath.
“Oh, I remember that night like it was yesterday,” Mitchell told us in a phone call, his voice full of warmth. “She was heartbroken for about ten minutes, and then you saw this fire light up in her eyes. That’s Reba. She walked out of that room and said, ‘Well, I better make this one song the best damn song they ever heard.’ That’s not just a story she tells; that was the moment a survivor became a star. It didn’t break her, it built her.”
A representative for McEntire confirmed that the full interview and anecdotes are part of a career-spanning special set to air later this year.
The other “unforgivable” acts are held with a much lighter, more affectionate tone. McEntire laughs as she recounts the time comedy legend Minnie Pearl, in a well-intentioned but misguided act of mentorship, tried to get her to wear a frilly, “un-Reba” dress on stage. “I love Minnie to pieces,” she chuckled, “but I could never forgive her for almost making me look like a cupcake with a cowboy hat.”
She also playfully calls out The Statler Brothers for a classic backstage prank involving hiding her favorite pair of boots just minutes before she was due on stage, causing a frantic, panicked search. “Those boys,” she said, shaking her head with a grin. “Never trust a quartet of charming men. It’s a lesson I learned the hard way.”
While the headline-grabbing phrase “never forgive” is clearly deployed with a theatrical wink, the stories underneath reveal a deeper truth. They are not tales of genuine animosity, but rites of passage. They are the moments of being overlooked, pranked, and underestimated that shaped Reba McEntire’s unshakeable resolve and her famously sharp sense of humor. In the world of the Grand Ole Opry, these weren’t insults; they were, in their own strange way, an initiation. And Reba McEntire, as she has always done, passed the test with flying colors.