Kyle Jacobs obit

Kellie Pickler’s husband Kyle Jacobs dead by suicide in Nashville home

 

 He was not on the list.

Country singer Kellie Pickler’s husband, songwriter Kyle Jacobs, died by suicide Friday at the couple’s home in Nashville.

Jacobs, 49, was found dead around 1:20 p.m. in an upstairs bedroom/office, Nashville police told Variety.

Pickler told police that “she awoke a short time earlier, did not see her husband, and began looking for him,” according to Variety.

Pickler and her assistant were unable to open the bedroom door and called police, TMZ reported. Authorities found Jacobs dead from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot.

Jacobs was a country music songwriter who also starred alongside his wife on the CMT reality show “I Love Kellie Pickler.” He worked with Garth Brooks, Tim McGraw and Kelly Clarkson, among others.

Pickler, 36, finished in sixth place on “American Idol” in 2006 before carving out a country music career for herself and winning “Dancing With the Stars” in 2013. She hosts Sirius XM’s country station “The Highway.”

Jacobs and Pickler married on Jan. 1, 2011, after dating for about two and a half years.

“Kyle took away all my fear of marriage and has shown me the way love is supposed to be,” Pickler said after the duo got engaged in 2010. “I’m in the happiest place I’ve ever been.”

By that point, Jacobs had been writing country songs for years, including Brooks’ “More Than a Memory,” which topped the country charts in 2007. He began working with Pickler in 2008, when she released her self-titled album.

In 2009, Jacobs had another hit with Tim McGraw’s “Still,” which entered the Billboard Hot 100 and helped propel McGraw’s album “Southern Voice” to the top of the country charts and No. 2 on the Billboard 200. McGraw and Jacobs were frequent collaborators throughout the 2000s and 2010s.

As Jacobs’ career progressed, he also worked with Trace Adkins, George Strait, Lee Brice and Bonnie Tyler, to name a few. He also unsurprisingly collaborated with Pickler on her final two albums, “100 Proof” and “The Woman I Am.”

One day before his death, Jacobs celebrated a record he produced, Lee Brice’s “Hey World,” achieving platinum status.

“Platinum?! SWEEEET!!! An amazing crew of incredibly talented peeps put this one together,” he wrote. “Deeply honored to be a creative part of it.”

“Kyle, my heart is broken in a thousand little pieces. You were light and love and hope. You made me better. You gave me wings,” country singer Emi Sunshine, who worked with Jacobs, wrote on Instagram. “My love for you and the songs we wrote will forever be.”