Natalie Maines is the lead singer for alt-country band The Chicks. She's known for being opinionated and unafraid, and she is definitely both in the band's newest album.
Natalie and her ex-husband, Adrian Pasdar, got married in 2000 and divorced in 2017. Their divorce was very dramatic and often tumultuous, but for a while a lot of the details weren't really out there.
Now Natalie and The Chicks have released their first album in 14 years, Gaslighter, and Natalie definitely isn't holding back from telling the world what really happened with Adrian. In fact, she's dropped so many details about the ins and outs of her second marriage that fans and music critics alike have been able to piece together most of the story.
And it turns out that Adrian definitely does not come off looking great. Considering he tried to get the judge in their divorce case to ban The Chicks from releasing new music, it's not super surprising.
Natalie and Adrian met in May 1999 at fellow band member Emily Strayer's wedding to her first husband. Natalie was a bridesmaid, and Adrian was a groomsman. They ended up getting married just over a year later, on June 24, 2000, at A Little White Wedding Chapel in Las Vegas. The two have two sons together and were married for 17 years.
Natalie filed for divorce, citing the oft-used "irreconcilable differences." Many of the details were kept secret, but what did leak out indicated that the two were in for a battle. Adrian tried to deny the validity of the pair's prenup and requested that Natalie pay him $60,000 a month — in addition to asking for $450,000 in retroactive child support.
Adrian also tried to prevent the group from releasing new music, saying that the band had songs that broke the confidentiality clause in the prenup he signed with Natalie. The two ultimately ended up finalizing their divorce in December 2019, two years after the process began.
The Chicks released their first single from Gaslighter in March 2020, a song also titled "Gaslighter." For those unfamiliar with the term, gaslighting is a tactic used by some to emotionally manipulate another person into questioning their own sanity. It's a really hard thing to experience.
Natalie never outright names the person she's speaking about, but many believe that she's directly singing about Adrian. The track contains quite a few scorchers, like "Give you all my money, you'll gladly walk away" and "'Cause, boy, you know exactly what you did on my boat / And, boy, that's exactly why you ain't comin' home."
As you can imagine, fans are super curious about what exactly did, or did not, happen on the boat in question.
The band's current single, "Sleep at Night" really explores the night of the boat transgression. The lyrics include: "Remember you brought her to our show at the Hollywood Bowl / She said, 'I love you, I'm such a fan' / I joked that you can love me as long as you don't love my man / There's nothin' funny about that."
Some fans believe that Natalie is singing about actress Amanda Righetti. Speculation has ramped up after people found a photo of Amanda and her good friend, Colony costar Sarah Wayne Callies, proudly brandishing tickets to a concert put on by The Chicks … in Los Angeles.
Adrian Pasdar also had a role on Colony.
Fans also believe that Adrian and Amanda are still together. On April 30, Amanda posted a photo of a man and a woman walking together, and wished someone a happy birthday in the caption. Adrian's birthday is, unsurprisingly, April 30.
However, Natalie has been unable to address the speculation directly due to "due to ongoing legal disputes."
The Chicks recently appeared on Howard Stern's show, and he tried his best to get Natalie to talk. After being asked about her divorce and the new album, Natalie simply replied, "As far as relationship songs go, in our minds, the way we laid it out on the record, it kind of takes you through a journey."
In the song "Sleep at Night," Natalie references a cheating partner again. "My husband's girlfriend's husband just called me up / How messed up is that? / It's so insane that I have to laugh."
However, Natalie is also clearly balancing her feelings with the fact that she's a mom of two boys who also have to live with this truth. In the song, she continues, "But then I think about our two boys trying to become men / There's nothing funny about that."
