Joey Feek Recalls Meeting Husband Rory, Who Has Stuck by Her Side Throughout Cancer Battle

Joey Feek knows the end is near. Half of the country/bluegrass duo Joey + Rory, she has battled stage IV cervical cancer since May of 2014. In a recent interview with People magazine, Joey Feek shared...
Joey Feek Recalls Meeting Husband Rory, Who Has Stuck by Her Side Throughout Cancer Battle
Written by Kimberly Ripley
  • Joey Feek knows the end is near. Half of the country/bluegrass duo Joey + Rory, she has battled stage IV cervical cancer since May of 2014.

    In a recent interview with People magazine, Joey Feek shared the joy of first meeting Rory, the husband who has stuck by her side throughout her battle.

    “Rory was singing “In the Round” at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville with three other songwriters,” Joey says of day she first laid eyes on him back in 2002. “I was just one of dozens of people in the audience that night. From the first song Rory sang, I fell head over heels for him.”

    “I didn’t even know him, but something inside me said, ‘You’re going to marry that man and spend the rest of your lives together,'” Joey Feek adds.

    Two months later the two tied the knot.

    In 2008, Rory and Joey Feek competed on CMT’s reality singing competition, Can You Duet, and came in third place. They spent years on the road singing together before adding to their family. Rory Feek already had two daughters–Hopie and Heidi–from a previous relationship. In February of 2014, daughter Indiana was born.

    Just a couple of months later, Joey Feek was diagnosed with cancer, underwent a radical hysterectomy, and underwent multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation.

    In June of 2015, doctors informed Joey and Rory that the treatments hadn’t worked. Her cancer had spread.

    Joey Feek returned to her childhood home in Indiana, where she is under hospice care.

    “I’m 10 years older than Joey and I always knew that when I get old or if something were to happen to me, Joey would be there beside me no matter what,” Rory Feek explains. “No matter how hard it was, no matter how I looked or what we faced, she would be there. But I never dreamed that the roles might be reversed and life might require those things from me.”

    “For better or worse aren’t just words you say anymore. Because of all Joey is going through, it’s given me the opportunity to live them every day, and follow through and mean the words I said to her at the altar,” he adds.

    Joey Feek knows she is blessed to have a husband like Rory. The two have relied on their strong faith since they met, and they’re relying on it now to get through these dark days.

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