Little Big Town Star Recalls Her Mother's Reaction To Long-Kept Secret

Kimberly Schlapman said her mother “giggled” and “had questions” after learning the country star’s long-kept secret about her marriage.

Schlapman, of Grammy-winning group Little Big Town, appeared on TODAY with Jenna & Friends on Tuesday morning (October 14). She caught up with Jenna Bush Hager and guest co-host Matt Rogers on her Golden Girls tribute with Reba McEntire and bandmate Karen Fairchild, touring with Little Big Town, why she’s never sang karaoke, and more.

Bush Hager noted that the last time Schlapman appeared on the show, she revealed a secret about her marriage that she’d kept for two decades. Schlapman was the guest co-host when she spilled her secret in January. She called her parents minutes before co-hosting the show that she and husband Stephen Schlapman actually eloped several months before their wedding. The coupel “got married November 2006. But six months earlier, we eloped to Vegas,” Schlapman said earlier this year. “Nobody knew. No one knew.” She later shared the video of the moment she told her parents the secret over the phone.

“She just laughed and giggled,” Schlapman said when Bush Hager and Rogers brought up that moment on Tuesday. “I mean, 20 years ago, my husband and I eloped. But we didn’t tell anyone. …They were like, ‘do you have any secrets?’ And I said ‘well, yeah, I have a huge secret. But I gotta call my mama first.’

“I was OK because it was fun. It was time,” she said. “Obviously, we’ve made it 20 years. It’s gonna be fine. Yeah, my mother just giggled…and then she had questions later.”

Schlapman went on to open up about her mother’s Parkinson’s disease, and her new efforts to raise awareness and empower others. Watch Schlapman’s appearance on TODAY with Jenna & Friends here: