Kellie Pickler’s husband, Kyle Jacobs, was found dead in an apparent suicide at the home the couple shared in Nashville, Tennessee, on Friday.
Confirming the death of the 49-year-old songwriter, the Nashville Police Department said in a statement, per ABC News: “Officers and Nashville Fire Department personnel responded and located resident Kyle Jacobs, 49, deceased from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound in an upstairs bedroom/office.”
“His death is being investigated as an apparent suicide,” the statement continued.
The Nashville Police Department added in the statement that Pickler, 36, “reported that she awoke a short time earlier, did not see her husband, and began looking for him.”
Pickler’s personal assistant called emergency services when she and Pickler struggled to open the door to the upstairs bedroom/office.
Pickler and Jacobs tied the knot in a private Caribbean ceremony in 2011, more than five years after her time on season five of American Idol. The pair also had their own CMT reality show, I Love Kellie Pickler, which ran from 2015 to 2017.
The show documented their relationship and work lives. “We just do everything we can just to be real,” Jacobs told Yahoo’s BUILD series in 2017. “We love laughing through life. We love to do that, and that’s what the show is. Our show is love and laughter.”
Jacobs – who had previously worked on tracks for Garth Brooks and Tim McGraw – added at the time: “There’s always stresses in life…and I think if you [and] especially with your significant other can laugh at a lot of it and laugh through it, then you’re in a good spot.”
As well as writing songs, Jacobs had producer credits on songs such as Lee Brice’s ‘Hard to Love’, ‘I Drive Your Truck’, ‘Drinking Class’ and ‘Rumor’.
Last year, Pickler told E! News that she doesn’t see herself as a celebrity and relishes her quieter life with Jacobs.
“I clock in and I do my job and then I come home and I’m a wife,” she said. “I hate the word celebrity. It dehumanizes people. I clock out of that world as quick as possible and I keep my feet on solid ground in the real world. I even have healthy boundaries with people that are in the business.”
Our thoughts are with Jacobs’ loved ones at this devastating time.