9 Things to Know About Faith Hill

Faith Hill celebrates her 52nd birthday on Sept. 21, and due to the coronavirus pandemic, she’ll likely be spending the day at home with her family, including husband Tim McGraw.

Hill is one of the most successful country artists of all time, becoming a huge crossover success with her pop-country sound beginning in the ’90s. The mom of three has sold over 40 million albums worldwide and has won five Grammy Awards, three CMA Awards and 15 Academy of Country Music Awards. She also holds one of the highest-grossing country tours of all time with her Soul2Soul II Tour 2006 with McGraw.

Read on for a few facts you may not know about the Mississippi girl.

She was adopted at birth

Hill was adopted by Ted and Edna Perry when she was born after her biological mother gave her up for adoption.  When she was an adult, Hill tracked down her biological mother, recalling the moment they met in a 2001 interview with Barbara Walters.

“I don’t even remember what I said. I don’t remember what she said,” Hill said. “We kind of just stared at each other. It was very strange, it wasn’t normal.”

She knew she wanted to be a singer at 7 years old

In 1975, a 7-year-old Hill attended Elvis Presley’s concert at the Mississippi Coliseum, where the cemented Hill’s future path with his performance.

“I sat in the top row of the arena and I remember everyone going wild,” she recalled in Chosen for Greatness: How Adoption Changes the World by Paul Batura. “But it was as if there was nobody there — except for me and Elvis.”

“I’m not sure what it was,” she added. “His presence, the reaction of the people, I don’t know. But what I did know was that after that concert, I had to be a performer, pure and simple.” Hill even told Billboard in 2017 that she used to “dream I was Elvis’ daughter.”

She auditioned to sing back-up for Reba McEntire

Hill didn’t score the role, with the singer telling Larry King in 2006 that she simply “wasn’t good enough,” though that missed opportunity may have saved her life. The woman who won the job, Paula Evans, was killed in a plane crash in 1991 along with several of McEntire’s band members and her tour manager.

“I don’t think fate had anything to do with that for me. I wasn’t a great background singer and I didn’t get the part,” Hill said. “But the first thing I thought when that happened obviously is I thought about the families of those that were lost and I thought about Reba and [McEntire’s husband at the time] Narvel [Blackstock]. I mean she’s an amazing woman who is very, very close to everyone around her and I knew that that was something that it was going to be a difficult thing for her to deal with for sure. But she’s a classy lady and she handled it brilliantly.”

Her worst concert ever was happened after a tobacco spitting contest

Even the best performers have their off days, and one of Hill’s worst was when she performed after a tobacco spitting contest, AXS shares. During the contest, contestants aimed at a tobacco spittoon on stage, with many missing their mark, and Hill walked out to perform right after the stage was wiped down with towels.

Her favorite food is Mexican

During an interview with Glamour in 2012, Hill shared that her favorite food is Mexican, especially chile rellenos. “Faith loves anything Mexican and so do the kids — we have it so much!” McGraw said. “Our favorite dishes to share are probably homemade chicken and dumplings—and Faith’s homemade cornbread.”

Hill added that she and McGraw both share a love of “great Southern cuisine” having grown up in the South — she in Mississippi and he in Louisiana.

She was pregnant with her first child while filming the video for “It’s Your Love”

The song was the very first collaboration between Hill and McGraw, and appeared on McGraw’s 1997 album Everywhere. By the time the two shot the video, Hill was pregnant with their first child, daughter Gracie. The pair had first heard the track and decided to record it while they were still dating, ultimately tying the knot in October 1996.

Her biggest beauty tip is to drink lots of water

“In my opinion, water is a beauty product!” Hill told Glamour, naming the liquid as her must-have beauty product. She also cited “some type of lip balm or Chapstick, and moisturizer or lotion.”

Hill added to RealBeauty.com that she and her husband often swap beauty products. “Tim always steals my lotion and I always steal his shower gel,” she said.

Her favorite Christmas carol is ‘Little Drummer Boy’

Hill shared the fact during a 2007 interview with Good Housekeeping, which also saw her reveal a few of Hill/McGraw holiday traditions including matching pajamas, tree decorating, feeding reindeer and even getting a letter from Santa. Hill revealed that the first year after Gracie was born, McGraw wrote his wife and daughter a letter and put it in their stocking, which has now become tradition.

“Now he does it every year,” she shared. “I get a letter from him in my stocking, and so do each of the girls. I can’t even tell you how much that means to me.”

She used to work at McDonald’s

When Hill was 16, she worked at a McDonald’s, serving the food, cleaning, working the register and more until she ultimately quit. “Fries, burgers, cash register — I did it all,” Hill said of the gig, via Taste of Country. “I hated it. God bless the people that work there.”

Before she made it big, Hill also worked selling t-shirts and as an administrator at a music publishing firm.