Brad Paisley tried to be supportive when his wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley lost her voice, but the country singer admits he wasn’t always helpful.
“I stepped in it so much,” he says of the two-year period when the actress couldn’t speak above a whisper.
When Kimberly’s voice first failed her at an Alzheimer’s Association event she was hosting in November 2022, Brad thought “‘Man, she’s overdone it.’ Because I only had my own experience to deal with, I remember thinking, ‘You are going to be fine. Give a few days and it’ll come back.’ “
He tried giving her advice. “I remember saying, ‘Let me hear you project.’ ‘Learn to power through it.’ I thought maybe she just needed to clear her throat,” he says. “It was so stupid and naive.”
Months later, the Father of the Bride actress still could only whisper. Eventually, she was diagnosed with a partially paralyzed vocal cord and underwent surgery to correct it, but in the meantime, Kimberly struggled to be heard in public —and in her own home.
“It was really hard because she would yell upstairs, ‘Hey, boys, come downstairs, dinner’s ready,'” and they could never hear her,” Brad says of the couple’s sons, Huck, 17, and Jasper, 15.
So the singer gave his wife a uniquely helpful Christmas gift: a bright pink megaphone that she could use to call the boys. “It was one of the kindest things Brad did for me — it was really hilarious and so necessary,” Kimberly says. “I started using it immediately. He is so good at keeping me laughing.”
That wasn’t always easy to do throughout her ordeal. She remembers an evening after her sons performed in a play when she wanted to celebrate together with the other kids and parents, but because it was hard for her to make conversation, she volunteered to clean up instead. “I swept the floors,” she says. “I got used to just closing myself off.”
When the kids and other families were at the afterparty, she went to her car and called her sister, actress Ashley Williams. “I remember just sitting in the car, sobbing, like, ‘This is so embarrassing. I want to be involved, but I just don’t know how.’ She cried with me. She, and Brad and the boys, were my rocks.”
Like Brad, her boys tried to find ways to help. “It was so tiring for me to talk on the phone, so my kids or Brad would talk for me,” she says. “My kids were great cheerleaders for me. At an event, they knew if someone I wanted to talk to was walking away and I couldn’t get them, and they’d get them for me. They’re used to assisting me, which is really sweet.”
Since her voice was so quiet, it was often difficult to tell how she was really feeling, Brad says. “You didn’t know her tone. That was eerie, ” he says. “There were times when we would say, ‘Are you okay with us?’ And she’s like [whispering], ‘Yeah.’ And we’d be like, “That didn’t sound sincere.’ And she’d say, ‘I don’t have another sound.’ “
Adds Kimberly, “Everyone around me was concerned it was their fault in some way. ‘Did we do something? Is there something she’s not telling us?’ “
It was “heartbreaking” to watch her struggle, Brad says. “This is somebody who lives to talk with people. And she wouldn’t want to.” However, “seeing her fight to figure it out was amazing. There was never a moment where she was just going to give up. It was inspiring.”
Kimberly, whose voice is now back after surgery in August, says the experience left her thankful for the love surrounding her.
“I am so grateful that I had Brad and the boys with me through this,” she says. “They saw me at my most vulnerable and my weakest moments. They made me feel less alone.”
For more on Kimberly Williams-Paisley’s PEOPLE cover story, pick up the new issue, on newsstands Friday.
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