What Brings Faith Hill to Tears?

Country star Faith Hill says her life changed forever when she reconnected with her birth family at the beginning of her career.

“It was all by divine intervention that it happened,” she told Robin Roberts on  the “In the Spotlight” special. “It was meant for me to find [my birth mother]. If I ever feel comfortable talking about the whole story, I will.”

 

Family has always been at the heart of Hill’s life. She grew up in small-town Mississippi knowing that she was adopted but didn’t have the desire to track down her biological mother until she came to Nashville to realize her dream.

“There was a period of time when I first moved to Nashville, like the first couple of years that I was just simply lost,” she said. “I didn’t know who I was; I didn’t know really what I was doing here. I was meant to be a singer, but I just felt lost. That’s when I went on the search for my birth family.”

“In the process I found a full brother,” she said, emphasizing  the importance of her  relationships with the  siblings she grew up with and that she  witnesses with her own children.

“We needed one another,” she said.

 Watch “In the Spotlight: All Access Nashville” Tuesday, Nov. 8 at 10 p.m. ET.

Hill, 44, will perform her new single, “Come Home”, from her forthcoming album at the CMA Awards  Nov. 9. It’s been six years since her last No. 1 hit.

“The pressure to get something out there is enormous,” Hill said. “It really is. I mean, to have not had a studio record on radio for six years, you know, basically, the career’s gone!” she said, laughing.

Hill hasn’t exactly taken it easy during that span. She’s been the voice of the Sunday Night Football introduction, premiered a perfume, released Greatest Hits and Christmas albums. And she became immortalized, along with  husband Tim McGraw, in Barbie and Ken form, to the delight of their three daughters.

Her thoughts on her Barbie self? “I wish they had given me bigger boobies!” she joked.

Hill and McGraw, who live on a sprawling Tennessee ranch, recently celebrated 15 years of marriage.

“I just love him,” she said. “Sometimes he drives me nuts, and I drive him nuts. We work differently, but I don’t know, I still … I really melt when I see my husband.”

Hill spoke openly to Roberts in the interview about her biggest fear in life.

“I can’t even say what my greatest fear is because I, I can’t even imagine,” she said.  “Being without my family… I can’t even say it because it makes me cry.”

But one thing she isn’t afraid of? Getting older.

“I think society, in general, is hard on women, period,” she said.  “I have had wrinkles on my forehead and my smile line since I was a kid. I see them in my own kids. I know what they’re going to look like. So it’s kind of like that’s my personality.   I feel the older you get, too, the more confident you become just in your own skin.”