Hunt was a college football quarterback for Middle Tennessee State University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. After graduating, he was briefly signed as an undrafted free agent with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Before releasing his own debut album,
Montevallo, in 2014, Hunt co-wrote Kenny Chesney's 2012 hit single "
Come Over." He also penned Keith Urban's "
Cop Car," which he would cover, and Billy Currington's "
We Are Tonight."
Hunt co-wrote all 10 songs on the
Montevallo album, including his first #1 country hit "
Leave the Night On."
Hunt could've been a Coca-Cola heir. He claims a paternal ancestor was an early owner of the soda's secret formula but sold it.
When Hunt first moved to Nashville, he got a job parking cars at a hospital, where he would also help patients walk to and from the facility.
Hunt cites fellow country star Brad Paisley as being a major influence on his songwriting style, particularly with Paisley's early hit "
He Didn't Have to Be." He told ABC News Radio: "I remember being at church on Wednesday night at Wednesday night supper, and getting the keys from my mom well before it was over to just go sit in the car and to turn the radio on and hopefully wait and catch that song."
Vocally, Hunt dug further back into country history with Conway Twitty's '60s and '70s repertoire of country hits ("Hello Darlin'," "I'd Just Love to Lay You Down").
Sam Hunt picked up his first guitar at the age of 18, just after finishing high school. He recalled to Jam! Music: "I went to a pawn shop and got a guitar there and I learned to play and at the time I thought it would just be a hobby. I was going off to college and I thought, 'Well in my downtime, maybe I'll learn a few songs.' And just fell in love with it. And no matter how tired I was, after I got home from football practice, football camp, I would always make time to pick up the guitar. Throughout college I got a little better at it and my passion grew."
The first song Sam Hunt learned on the guitar was Kenny Chesney's 2000 single "What I Need to Do." "It was just an easy song to play," he told Kix Brooks in a radio interview. Later things came full-circle when Hunt's first hit was Kenny Chesney's "Come Over."
A couple of months after an unsuccessful tryout for the Kansas City Chiefs, Hunt shocked his family and friends by uprooting and moving to Nashville. No one in his family even knew he had been writing songs. "Maybe I was insecure, because being a football player was my identity. I didn't see myself that way," Hunt told Billboard magazine. "But it took a long time before I decided to test out a song I'd written for my roommates, who were some of my closest buddies. I felt trapped inside a stereotype and was a little afraid to step out of it."
Hunt doesn't come from a musical l background. He told Nash FM's Ty, Kelly and Chuck "Traditionally speaking, I'm not a technical musician or a technical singer or educated in any [musical] way other than just googling guitar chords and learning them on my guitar—simple country songs from the '90s and just kind of learning it the best I could. I guess fake it until you make it. I'm just a football player trying to figure it out, really."
Sam Hunt married Hannah Lee Fowler on April 15, 2017. The wedding took place in Cedartown, Georgia, with only close family and friends invited.
Hunt and his new bride dated on and off before getting engaged; however, she was never far from his thoughts and the hit singles "
Break Up In A Small Town", "
Make You Miss Me" and "
Take Your Time" were all inspired by her.
Hannah Lee Fowler filed for divorce on February 18, 2022. She cited Hunt's infidelity, claiming her husband had been "guilty of inappropriate marital conduct" and "guilty of adultery." Three months later, Fowler submitted legal documents requesting that the court dismiss their case. Instead, the couple decided to try to work things out as Fowler neared the birth of their first baby.
Sam Hunt's debut album, Montevallo, is named after Hannah's home town.
Sam Hunt is a frequent tourmate of Luke Bryan, joining him for the stadium dates on the "
That's My Kind of Night" singer's 2018
What Makes You Country gigs. However it was another member of Hunt's family who first had a connection with Bryan.
"I discovered Luke's music several years ago when I was in college. I came home one weekend and walked in the house, and everybody was gathered around the TV," recalled Hunt. "My mom said, 'Hey, come over here, come over here! Your brother's in a country music video.' And it was an artist named Luke Bryan. He had a song called 'All My Friends Say,' and they recorded this video at my brother's fraternity house. We were all wound up and excited, because we got to see 2.5 seconds of the back of my brother's head in this Luke Bryan video."
In November 2019, Sam Hunt tangled with the law in Nashville after a night of bad decisions. A little too much celebrating ended in a DUI arrest. Two years later, the verdict came down: guilty as charged. Hunt's license got put on hold for a year and the judge slapped him with a jail sentence of nearly a year. Luckily, he only had to serve 48 hours as the rest was suspended.
Sam Hunt keeps his backstage rider pretty simple. "Some beer, some water, little whiskey, little tequila," he
told Taste of Country Nights in 20024. "Although, those are really more the old days when we would have a little whiskey before a show."
"Maybe some good guacamole and some chips, and that's it," he added. "I like when the avocados are very fresh. I like the chunky, thicker guacamole."
Years ago, people would mistake Hunt for NFL star Travis Kelce, long before Kelce paired with Taylor Swift and became a household name. But with Kelce's rise and Hunt's more dad-like, clean-cut look, those comparisons have all but stopped.
