Reba McEntire is about to add a new role to her life: grandma!
The country superstar’s son, Shelby Blackstock, is expecting his first baby with wife Marissa Blackstock. The couple announced the news via Instagram on Tuesday, April 14, sharing several photos of themselves celebrating at Disney World.
“Oh, BOY! We’re beyond excited to FINALLY announce our little man is coming in October,” the duo wrote in their caption. “See ya real soon, pal! Mommy + Daddy love you! 🤟🏼.”
The first snap showed Shelby, 36, and Marissa, 33, posing in front of Cinderella Castle and holding a onesie that featured a sleeping baby Mickey Mouse and their last name. In another photo, the pair shared a kiss as they held up a sonogram.
The couple are big fans of Disney World, having tied the knot there in February 2022 after getting engaged in 2020.
“My mom worked there when she was younger, managing the Small World ride. It was my Nana’s favorite. She passed away in 2006 at the age of 57, while I was in middle school. She was my rock, and her passing affected me deeply,” Marissa told People in 2022, explaining why she wanted to walk down the aisle at the theme park. “To this day, one of my most cherished photos features the two of us on Small World. Shelby and I first visited Disney World together six years ago — the first time I had been back since my grandmother passed. We rode Small World in her memory, which was really moving for both of us.”
While McEntire, 71, has happily spent time with her stepchildren’s kids over the years, Shelby and Marissa’s son will be her first biological grandchild. The Grammy winner shares Shelby with ex-husband Narvel Blackstock, to whom she was married from 1989 to 2015. Narvel fathered three children with his ex-wife Elisa Ritter: Brandon, Shawna and Chassidy. (Brandon died in August 2025 at age 48 after a battle with melanoma.)
“I don’t consider Brandon, Chassidy and Shawna stepchildren,” McEntire told The Boot in 2010. “I claim them all.”
Before his death, Brandon was married to Kelly Clarkson from 2013 to 2022. The former couple shared two kids: daughter River Rose, 11, and son Remy, 10. Before Clarkson’s split from Brandon, she described McEntire as “a really rad grandma for my kids” while speaking at the Kennedy Center Honors in 2018.
“If we’re all being honest, sometimes when we meet our heroes it doesn’t always pan out how you hope,” said Clarkson, 43. “But meeting Reba, being friends with her, and eventually becoming family has been one of the highlights of my life.”
McEntire became a stepmother for the first time during her first marriage to Charlie Battles, which lasted from 1976 to 1987. Battles, who died in 2013, was the father of sons Coty and Lance.
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