Ty Herndon Clears Rumors of Arrest, Addiction, Crush On Wynonna

Ty Herndon is telling his full truth, and he’s not worried about the ramifications. A new memoir opens doors on trauma that he locked up, sealed with tape and forgot about years ago.

Time, maturity, EMDR therapy and an 84-year-old author named David Ruiz helped him return.

“You have to dig these rooms out and hopefully you have the courage to open them,” he tells Evan Paul during an extended conversation about his new memoir, What Mattered Most.

“It’s not like taking a cleaning crew in there. You gotta go in there yourself and you’re seeing and realizing things that happened to you that had been so long buried.”

The headlines are well known. Herndon’s 1995 debut single hit No. 1, but soon after, he was arrested on indecent exposure and drug charges.

Rehab, an apology and a period of sobriety followed, as did a half dozen hit singles (including two that reached No. 1 on Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart). He was living a lie, but it was working; at least professionally.

“I went straight out of treatment into over 100 dates that year,” he recalls. “And so at a moment when I thought maybe I would’ve gotten to come out and just go sell real estate and actually kind of live and be happy, it didn’t happen that way. It was like, we’re gonna push the envelope on this lie.”

By the turn of the century, Herndon’s time as a radio hitmaker was wrapping up. His memoir details this dark period in ways that remind readers just how ordinary celebrities can be. His vulnerabilities are exposed with every page.

“I say in the first part of this book, I really want you to love me, but the truth is you’re probably not going to,” Herndon tells Taste of Country.

“I had a little crush on her. You know, and maybe she had a little crush on me.”

What Mattered Most isn’t a pity party, as Herndon accepts all the blame and consequences for decisions he made. It is, he says, a redemption arc that he’s satisfied to be at the end of.

Below is a partial transcript of the 64-year-old’s conversation with Taste of Country. The video interview includes the full conversation, slightly edited.

What Mattered Most: A Memoir is available wherever good books are found.

Taste of Country: What were some of the rumors that you wanted to clear up?

Well, the arrest in ’95. I went on to have a pretty decent career after that. The trajectory changed for sure, but I was married at the time and then being able to take everyone through that journey of having to get married and then what that did to that young lady’s life.

And actually, walking through that arrest, thinking that I was actually going to die because — people don’t know that I was handcuffed face down in an unmarked police car for seven hours. That’s just something I could never tell.

This is just, there is no excuse. It’s addiction.

For people who haven’t read the book yet or don’t know, what happened?

I was high as a kite, and I had six months’ worth of drugs sitting in my pickup truck. And, you know, I basically got entrapped in a park in Texas. You know, I pulled off because I was running out of gas and there’s — I was so naive, man.

But, you know, I pulled over to just basically get high. And went for a little walk on a trail. It looked nice to me. And it had a very stoic police (officer), as we now know, was an undercover cop. Basically, you know do the old rub, and I rubbed right back. The cop said, you know, I exposed myself to this police officer and he said, “Man, I know who you are. This is not your day, cowboy.”

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And in that moment, I knew that he knew who I was and the nightmare of what I had done and years of hiding collapsed in on me at that point. And then being put in an old Impala, beat up black car, face down, handcuffed with my shirt torn off. It really goes into detail with what was going on with this and the nightmare of it.

So you walk through these things in the book that I’ve never been able to talk about. I’ve gotten rid of shame, I’ve gotten rid of all that crap because it didn’t serve anybody. This is something that happened to a good guy. This is something that happened to a man who loves the Lord, loves his mama, who loves his family, who would have never chosen this in a million years. But somehow I got— I got put in a cave that collapsed on me. And by the grace of God, I’m still here, man, after all these years. That I’m able to put this book out, tell the people the truth, and still make music.

“And I’ve become an author. We’ve got a cookbook coming. We’ve got, you know, I’ve got a children’s book coming, and I’m a married man (husband Alex Schwartz) with a house payment, two car payments, insurance, and a dog. You know, maybe a baby next year. How the hell did I get here? But I like it.

Wait, maybe a baby?

Maybe.

Are you thinking about it?

We’re thinking about it, you know. Yeah, you know, we’re thinking about it. But if I don’t hurry up, I’m gonna be a, you know, a papaw in college.

Were there any artists in the ’90s that, behind closed doors, knew your truth but kept the secret?

Some of my friends like Chely Wright, you know, she kind of had a suspicion about it, but I never had a suspicion about her at all. It was kind of like, God, had we only known each other, known the truth back then, we’d probably had 10 babies, and everything would have been just great. We’d have been Tim and Faith, honey!

I guarded my secrets so, so heavily. I think one of the first people I came out to in around 1998 was Wynonna (Judd). And, you know, Wynonna’s Wynonna. She’s just like, well, I love you. I love you, honey.

What made you want to tell Wynonna?

I had a little crush on her. She knows, she knows this. And we were great friends, you know, and maybe she had a little crush on me, I don’t know. But it came to that point, I had to say, look, this is friendship. And I have a partner that I’ve had for eight years. His name is Cowboy. And bless her heart, she was great. She goes, well, honey, just take care of your heart.

You know the headline’s going to read that you rejected Wynonna.

(Laughs) We all know it would have been the other way around.