Though his first child isn’t officially due until later this month, Charles Kelley tells ABC Radio he and his wife Cassie believed they were becoming parents on Tuesday, just hours before his Wednesday morning appearance on Good Morning America.
“I’ll go ahead and reveal that we thought it might be happening yesterday, before we were coming here,” he revealed backstage at GMA. “My wife went in for an appointment, and they were like ‘Uh-oh! I might be having contractions, I don’t know. It might just be…’ What are these things called? Braxton Hicks or whatever. It’s like fake contractions or whatever. But she was in a lot of pain and so, we go and they said ‘No, you know, go home. You’re all right.’ So Cassie gave me the go-ahead to come fly to New York and we definitely have a plane on standby if we need it, cause I am not missing the birth of this first baby.”
Since Charles’ song “The Driver” is up for a Grammy, Cassie had previously insisted that the father-to-be attend the ceremony in Los Angeles, even though the February 15 ceremony is just days before her due date. But now, that’s all changed.
“That is off the table now. She did tell me that — this was about a month ago. She was like, ‘I really want you to go. This is a big moment.’ You know, having my first solo single nominated. She said, ‘I don’t want you to miss this.’ And then last week, she goes ‘I just don’t think I’m going to be able to handle it.'”
Even though Lady Antebellum is currently on hiatus, Charles was set to reunite with band mates Hillary Scott and Dave Haywood to pay tribute to Lionel Ritchie at the MusiCares event the Saturday before the Grammys. Now, that’s off the table as well, mainly because Charles is thinking he’ll already be changing diapers and rocking his newborn son by then.
“I have a gut feeling that she’s going to be having this baby within the week,” he predicts. “And so…I don’t want to take any chances. And we didn’t want to get so far down the line too where I would have to cancel the day of or before. And so I think they appreciated the heads up. But it broke my heart. I actually need to send a note to Lionel and just tell him what it meant to me to even be asked.”
Charles went on to reveal Lady A had planned to do “Endless Love” at the tribute, adding “It would’ve been epic!”
As the soon-to-be first-time dad turns his attention to other epic events in his life, his debut solo album is also on the way. While we don’t know exactly when baby Kelley will arrive, we do know The Driver will be here on Friday.
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