The Sad Truth About Reba McEntire's Childhood

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Reba McEntire may have millions to spend nowadays, but that wasn't always her reality. The Queen of Country was raised on a cattle farm in Oklahoma, far from the glitz and glam she later embraced. While she experienced a lot of family bonding and contact with nature, her childhood was also difficult on different fronts. As the daughter of a cowboy, Reba started working on the ranch as a preschooler. The lifestyle taught her to often neglect her body, something she didn't realize until she was much older.

The cowboy life also meant Reba was raised by a cold father who feared emotions and expected a lot from his four children. Reba would have loved the experience of an affectionate father, but Clark McEntire was the opposite. In fact, his kids believe he was even a bit cruel. But their mother made up for it. Unfortunately, while Jacqueline McEntire was tender, she also pushed her children a bit too much, especially Reba. That's because Jacqueline had dreamed of being a country singer and projected it onto her talented daughter.

Reba made it her life purpose to fulfill her mother's needs to live through her. Even when she felt uncomfortable taking the stage, she pushed herself to make her mother proud. That's also how Reba got her parents' attention. As a girl and middle child, she was often overlooked at home. But singing changed that. Reba had a good relationship with her late parents, but they didn't always make her childhood easy.

Reba McEntire's father was a rancher and world champion steer roper. A true American cowboy who made that lifestyle his whole identity, Clark McEntire had no time for showing affection. His children learned that firsthand. "When we were growing up I used to regret that Daddy never told us that he loved us," Reba wrote in "Reba: My Story," her 1994 autobiography. In Clark's mind, tenderness had no place in his life. "He liked being known as a champion cowboy," Reba's sister, Alice Foran, told The Washington Post in 2018.

Tact was also of little importance to the persona he constructed for himself. "You didn't have to worry about what was on his mind. He would tell you in a heartbeat. By our standards, they would say he was cruel," Foran said. As an example, he discouraged Reba from engaging in activities common among her peers, like barrel racing and playing basketball. "Reba, why do you always want to do something you're not good at?" he would tell her, even though Reba often took home ribbons during competitions.

As an adult, Reba learned to appreciate her father's tough lessons. "The thing I learned from Daddy is to be competitive," she told The Oklahoman in 2014, following Clark's death. That spirit served her well, even if being an artist was worlds apart from being a cowboy. "As I've grown older, I find I listen like Daddy did before I make a decision," she said.

When she was little, Reba McEntire felt completely outranked at home. "I was the third of four kids. I wasn't a boy. I wasn't the youngest or the oldest. I was in the middle," she said in The Washington Post interview. "I had to fight for attention." Luckily for the girl, she had a gift most could only dream of. She learned that early on as she fought to stand out in her busy household. By age 5, her parents were more than aware that their little Reba could sing. "Best attention I ever got," she said.

While Clark McEntire carried the part of the tough cowboy home with him, Jacqueline McEntire was soft and affectionate when appropriate. "My mama, Jackie, picked up the slack," Reba told The Wall Street Journal in 2024. Besides, she loved music and never got in the way of her children having fun with it. "She was our best friend, our cheerleader and our disciplinarian. And she was our rock," she said. Thanks to her mother's appreciation of country music, Reba obtained what she was after time and time again.

Singing worked like a charm. "Performing gained Mama's adoration. I yearned to hear her say, 'That was real good, Reba,'" she said. That became her biggest motivation, even though she didn't put all her eggs in that basket. Reba continued to invest in her education, earning a bachelor's degree  — though she never got to use it.

Jacqueline McEntire didn't just love country music the way most Southerners do. She had actually pursued a singing career, albeit unsuccessfully. "Mama had always wanted to be a country singer," Reba McEntire shared in The Wall Street Journal interview. Instead, Jacqueline became a school teacher, like her own mother. Even though she loved what she did, she still regretted that she missed out on being an artist.

Because she had dreamed of being a country singer, she encouraged her children to express themselves that way. "Country music meant a great deal to her," Reba said. As such, Jacqueline became a bit too invested in Reba's singing prospects. Soon enough, Jacqueline was driving three of her children, who performed together as the Singing McEntires, to competitions and events across the border. Reba didn't always love it. One time, she felt unsure about one of their excursions, so her mother told her how she felt.

Speaking to The Washington Post, Reba recalled Jacqueline saying, "If you don't want to go to Nashville, we don't have to do this. But I'm living all my dreams through you." She felt the weight of her mother's words. But instead of fearing it, she embraced it. So much so that Jacqueline's 2020 death almost ended Reba's music career. "I told my little sister Susie ... 'I don't know if I want to sing anymore.' She said, 'Why?' I said, 'Because I always sang for Mama,'" she told Today.

Most children today spend their days either at daycare or being endlessly entertained by caregivers. That wasn't Reba McEntire's reality, though. By the time she was 5, Reba was hard at work on the family ranch. "I didn't play cowgirl growing up. I was one," she said in The Wall Street Journal interview. Day in and day out, the little girl was out in the fields aiding Clark McEntire with whatever needed doing. "If Daddy needed a driver to move grain in his pickup truck, he came in and got whoever was there," she said.

If that happened to be Reba, her father would place her on a giant feed sack so she could see out the windshield. "I'd be on my knees to work the steering wheel. He'd put the truck in granny gear, jump out and off I'd go," she said. The McEntire children knew better than to try to talk their father into letting them play around. "When Daddy would tell you to go park yourself on your horse in a certain gate ... you'd darn sure better park your horse there in that gate," she told The Oklahoman.

It may not have been a typical childhood, but Reba is glad she learned the value of hard work. "Learning to work on a ranch really came over into my career, because when you were told to do something, you did it," she told Garden & Gun in 2020.

Throughout her early years, Reba McEntire spent little time thinking about how to care for her body. She couldn't have given sun damage a second thought or questioned whether her work at the ranch could damage her back. It's not that she didn't care; she just didn't know. "I wasn't always this in tune with my body, and I regret how I abused it while I was growing up," she wrote in her 1999 book, "Comfort from a Country Quilt."

McEntire often spent summer days lounging in the sun with no protection, without a single care in the world. She would also spend long hours on the ranch with no water in sight. She didn't have to wait years to see the consequences of that one. One day, she collapsed without warning while working the cattle alongside her father. "I was standing real close to the fire that kept the branding irons hot. Next thing I knew, my legs went out from under me and I was out. I guess I had heatstroke," she shared in "Reba: My Story."

McEntire also used improper posture to lift large feed sacks and drank too much alcohol in college. But she has learned her lessons. With time, she started to care for her body. It has paid off, but she puts in the effort. "I have to watch what I eat and exercise and cut back," she told People in 2020.