Country superstar Reba McEntire adores her boyfriend of five years, actor Rex Linn, but “The Voice” coach couldn’t bring herself to give him a smooch on the Halloween edition of “The Kelly Clarkson Show.”
Clarkson, her band, McEntire and Linn all dressed up as “Beetlejuice” characters for the episode that aired on October 31, 2024. Clarkson was virtually unrecognizable as the lead character Betelgeuse, while McEntire dressed up as Catherine O’Hara’s red-headed character from the famous “Banana Boat” scene in the original 1988 movie.
Linn, meanwhile, portrayed the janitor that Danny DeVitto plays in a surprise cameo in the 2024 sequel — and the costume was so creepy that McEntire refused to kiss or touch her beau, exclaiming, “Gross!”
Rex Linn Says He Can’t Scare Girlfriend Reba McEntire
Clarkson and McEntire, her former stepmother-in-law, chatted before Linn appeared on the show. When Clarkson introduced her “fellow Texan” Linn, who co-stars with McEntire on her new NBC sitcom “Happy’s Place,” McEntire looked stunned as he walked toward her, dragging his leg like the character.
She started shaking her head as he approached, and then laughed and put up her hands in protest when he leaned in for a kiss.
“Oh, gross!” she exclaimed, pointing to the couch. “No! You get over here.”
McEntire then turned to the audience and explained her shock, telling them, “I haven’t seen this yet!
“If y’all don’t know this, they’re dating,” Clarkson said grinning, and then turned to Linn. “And I’m just saying — you should go home like that, man.”
“Gimme a kiss,” Linn said, leaning toward McEntire, and again she said, “No!”
“You’ve never made out with that,” Clarkson quipped, and McEntire replied, “Nope, never will!”
Though McEntire may be easily grossed out, Linn lamented that she’s a hard person to spook, admitting that he loves to jump out and scare people “to see how they react.” He told a story about one night when he got down on the floor at their ranch and waited for 30 minutes while she worked in the kitchen, planning to grab her ankle and surprise her as she walked out.
“This woman here, there’s something wrong with her,” he joked, describing how unfazed McEntire was by his prank.
He explained, “I grabbed her ankle and screamed as loud as I could, and she just looked at (me) and she goes, ‘What are you doing down there?’”
Reba McEntire Has Said She’s Madly in Love With Rex Linn
After two marriages that ended in divorce, McEntire told Us Weekly in early October that Linn is “the love of my life.”
“Rex and I are best friends,” she told the outlet. “We have the same likes and dislikes. We’re foodies. We love to cook. We each wanted to be a cowboy and a cowgirl. Then we got into the entertainment business instead. Our dynamic works on and off-screen.”
In 2020, McEntire told Andy Cohen on “Watch What Happens Live” that she’s known the actor since 1991, when they met filming the Kenny Rogers movie “The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw.” But they didn’t get close until the COVID pandemic.
“We kept in contact over the years, we both know the same people,” McEntire told Cohen. “So it was just like good friends getting back together and having dinner … then we started texting and talking on the telephone and getting to know each other better during the quarantine.”
Though McEntire is best known for her country music career, they both love acting and have appeared in multiple projects together.
“He and I rehearse a lot,” she told Us Weekly. “We did a Lifetime movie together. We did “Big Sky” on ABC. We’ve both been on “Young Sheldon,” and now we’re doing “Happy’s Place” together, so we get real serious about rehearsals and we know our dialogue for sure. To have fun and be comfortable with dialogue, you’ve got to know it. We work hard on that.”
Though McEntire told Us Weekly she doesn’t care whether they eventually get married or not, she said she thinks “we have made each other better.”
“Rex brings out the little girl in me and I have fun,” she said. “I’m dorky, I’m goofy. He is too. We love to laugh, and we love each other.”
