The Long Lasting Side Effects Trisha Yearwood Is Still Experiencing After Having COVID-19

Trisha Yearwood was diagnosed with COVID-19 in February, and while she has since tested negative for the virus, the country star recently revealed that she is still missing her sense of taste and smell. During an appearance on The Kelly Clarkson Show on Tuesday, Yearwood told Kelly Clarkson that “food is kind of different right now.”

She added that she first noticed her sense of taste and smell were gone “about five days in” to her having the virus when husband Garth Brooks made her coffee. “I’m like, ‘I love you, but this is weak coffee,’” she recalled. “It was just like that.” It’s since been around eight weeks, and Yearwood explained that eating is now a different experience for her. “It’s really weird, I think this is how normal people eat,” she joked. “They eat when they’re hungry, this is my theory, and then they stop when they’re full. It’s weird!”

“It’s so much about taste and smell and if you can’t smell you don’t really [crave],” she continued. “You just don’t. So now it’s all about texture, I can tell if something’s spicy… that’s about it. Lots of hot sauce.” Clarkson exclaimed, “They say it comes back, right?” “They do say it does, Kelly,” Yearwood replied. “I mean I have this whole cooking show, so.”

The Georgia native stars on her Food Network show, Trisha’s Southern Kitchen, and is currently preparing to release a new cookbook this fall. She explained that when she’s cooking now, she asks Brooks for his input. “I love to cook, so now when I cook I just ask Garth, ‘Tell me if it needs more salt and pepper,’” she said. “It’s the weirdest thing.” Yearwood and Brooks live on a farm in Tennessee together and Brooks did not test positive for COVID-19, prompting his wife to tell Clarkson, “He’s an alien and I think we’ve proved this.”

She also shared that Brooks refused to leave her side after she was diagnosed. “I was like, ‘You have to get away from me. You have to quarantine in another room,’” she recalled. “[He was] like ‘No, no. We’re in this together.’ I’m like, ‘Honey, I cannot give Garth Brooks COVID. You can’t get it!’ And he never did.” Yearwood added that Brooks was a “really wonderful” caretaker. “I was like ‘If you get it, I’m not going to sleep in the bed with you,’” she joked. “I love you, but no.”