‘Pioneer Woman’ Star Ree Drummond Has the Sweetest Love Story With Husband Ladd: Meet the Rancher

Meant to be! Pioneer Woman star Ree Drummond and husband Ladd Drummond have been married for over two decades and share five children. You would never guess these two were actually a very unlikely pair who first crossed paths in a smokey bar.

Ree met Ladd during a night out with her girlfriends. She was temporarily back in her hometown of Bartlesville, Oklahoma, after finishing college in Los Angeles, California. She was planning on relocating to Chicago, Illinois, to attend law school, but fate took its course.

“Ladd was standing across the bar wearing a pair of Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, sipping on bottled beer,” she penned in a blog post on her website in January 2021. “He had blue-green eyes and salt-and-pepper hair — but it was the cowboy’s hands that made him impossible for Ree to ignore.”

They had an instant spark, and the cookbook author was fully expecting a call from the rancher the following day. However, it took him four months to contact her for a date. Although she was a self-proclaimed city girl and he was a “Marlboro Man-esque character,” something about their romance just worked.

The pair got married in September 1996. “During our reception, my brother, Mike, got up on stage and belted out ‘Elvira,'” Ree recalled about their big day. “Then, Arizona State, Ladd’s alma mater, beat Nebraska—the two-time defending national football champions at the time. Ladd and his college friends were in the men’s locker room almost the whole reception to watch the game. They were so excited!”

They were still newlyweds when they began expanding their family. “We decided to take the ‘let nature take its course’ approach to family planning once we tied the knot,” Ree quipped. Before they knew it, the lovebirds became the proud parents of their children, Alex, Paige, Bryce and Todd. In 2019, the family welcomed their foster son Jamar, whom Ree calls her “bonus son,” into their lives.

Between marriage, babies and becoming foster parents, Ree and Ladd have certainly experienced a lot together. Through both the ups and downs, Ree has been her hubby’s biggest supporter, especially when Ladd was involved in a firetruck accident on March 10. According to a report from the Oklahoma Highway Patrol, Ladd, as well as their nephew Caleb, crashed their large vehicles “head-on” while responding to fires that have burned more than 200 acres surrounding the Drummond family farm in Pawhuska, Oklahoma, the New York Post reported.

Five days after the devastating accident, Ree gave an update on how her loved ones were doing in a blog post on her website. The professional photographer revealed her husband “broke his neck in two places.” Though Ladd’s injury could’ve been “catastrophic,” he underwent surgery to stabilize the fractures in his neck.

“Thanks to some rods and other hardware (and an amazing neurosurgeon named Dr. Kalani), it’s fixed now and that danger is over,” she penned on March 15. “He will have to wear a neck brace for several weeks to let the other fracture heal, and the girls and I will bling out the brace for Alex’s wedding … but we are just grateful he will be here for Alex’s wedding.”

We’re sending prayers to the Drummond family for a speedy recovery.

Keep scrolling to learn more about Ladd.