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THE SONG ABOUT A DIVORCE THAT NEVER HAPPENED — NASHVILLE, 1982 “She got the goldmine. I got the shaft.” Jerry Reed sang the line on every stage in America in 1982. The song hit #1 on the country chart. Audiences laughed and slapped the table because they all knew a guy who’d been gutted by a divorce. Everyone assumed Jerry was that man. He wasn’t. Jerry had married Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell on July 9, 1959. She was a country singer herself, co-credited on a #1 hit in 1965. They had two daughters. The marriage lasted forty-nine years — until the day Jerry died in a Nashville hospice on September 1, 2008. He didn’t even write the song. A young Nashville songwriter named Tim DuBois wrote it. Jerry just sang it — and sold it so completely that an entire generation of fans believed they were hearing his real divorce. Prissy was always somewhere in the room. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes rolling her eyes. The man famous for losing everything in a divorce never lost a thing. And what Prissy said when reporters finally asked her about that song — most country fans have never heard it.

The Song About a Divorce That Never Happened

Nashville, 1982. Jerry Reed stepped up to the microphone with that mischievous grin people knew so well, the grin that made it seem like a joke was already halfway out of his mouth before the band even started playing.

Then came the line that country fans would repeat for decades:

“She got the goldmine. I got the shaft.”

The audience roared. Men slapped tables. Women laughed because they knew exactly the kind of man the song was teasing. It sounded like the funniest divorce complaint ever put to music — part heartbreak, part stand-up routine, part Nashville truth wrapped in a wink.

And because Jerry Reed sang it so naturally, many fans assumed the story belonged to Jerry Reed himself.

The Man Everyone Thought Had Been Divorced

In 1982, “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” became one of Jerry Reed’s signature hits. The song climbed to number one on the country chart, and it fit Jerry Reed’s public image perfectly: clever, quick-talking, playful, and just rough enough around the edges to sound like he had lived every word.

But the funny thing is, the divorce in the song was not Jerry Reed’s divorce.

Jerry Reed had been married to Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell since July 9, 1959. Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell was not just a wife standing quietly in the background. Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell was a country singer herself, best remembered as part of the duo Roy Drusky and Priscilla Mitchell, whose “Yes, Mr. Peters” reached number one in 1965.

Jerry Reed and Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell built a life together through the hard travel, bright lights, late nights, and unpredictable seasons of the music business. Jerry Reed became a Grammy-winning guitarist, singer, actor, and one of Nashville’s most recognizable personalities. Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell understood the road, the stage, and the strange way a song could become larger than the person singing it.

The Twist Behind the Hit

The truth was simple: Jerry Reed did not write “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft).” The song was written by Tim DuBois, a young Nashville songwriter who knew how to turn everyday frustration into a sharp, funny country story.

Jerry Reed recorded it, performed it, and gave it the kind of life only Jerry Reed could give. Jerry Reed did not merely sing the joke. Jerry Reed acted it out. Jerry Reed leaned into every complaint, every punchline, every exaggerated sigh of a man who felt like he had been cleaned out by love and lawyers.

That was Jerry Reed’s gift. Jerry Reed could take a song he did not write and make it sound like it had been waiting inside him for years.

Somewhere nearby, Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell must have understood the irony better than anyone. The man joking to packed rooms about being ruined by divorce was going home to the same woman he had married more than two decades earlier.

Prissy Knew the Joke

It is easy to imagine the scene backstage. Jerry Reed finishing the song to thunderous applause. Fans laughing like they had just heard a personal confession. Someone whispering, “Poor Jerry,” as if the song were a diary page.

And Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell knowing the truth.

Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell was not the villain in the song. Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell was not the woman who took the goldmine. Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell was the woman who stayed.

That is what makes the story so charming. The public heard a divorce anthem. The marriage behind it kept going.

Jerry Reed and Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell remained married for forty-nine years, until Jerry Reed died in Nashville on September 1, 2008. The song joked about losing everything, but Jerry Reed never lost the home life that had been beside him since 1959.

The Country Joke With a Hidden Love Story

Country music has always loved a good heartbreak song. It has always loved a clever line, too. “She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft)” worked because it felt familiar. It gave people permission to laugh at pain, exaggerate disappointment, and turn trouble into a chorus everybody could sing.

But behind that famous line is a quieter truth. Jerry Reed was not the abandoned man fans imagined. Jerry Reed was a performer so convincing that people believed the character was the man.

The real story was not about a divorce that destroyed Jerry Reed. The real story was about a marriage that lasted through fame, travel, laughter, misunderstanding, and time.

Maybe that is why the song still feels so alive. The joke was loud. The love story was quiet. And sometimes, in country music, the quiet part is the one that lasts the longest.

 

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“TO US, OUTLAW MEANT STANDING UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS, YOUR OWN WAY OF DOING THINGS.” That was Waylon Jennings explaining the word that defined a generation of country music — and a movement he didn’t just join, he started. Born June 15, 1937 in Littlefield, Texas, Waylon was Buddy Holly’s bass player at 21 and gave up his seat on the plane that killed Holly in 1959 — a moment he never stopped carrying. By 1972, sick of Nashville producers smothering his records with strings, he tore up his RCA contract and demanded artistic control. No one had done it before. In 1973 he made Honky Tonk Heroes his way — gritty, bass-driven, no studio men, no permission asked. Three years later, Wanted! The Outlaws with Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser became the first country album in history to sell a million copies. He had 16 No. 1 singles and changed Nashville forever — without ever asking it to change for him. On February 13, 2002, Waylon Jennings died in his sleep at his home in Chandler, Arizona, from complications of diabetes. He was 64. And the dozen songs he was quietly recording in his final months — released a full decade after his death — is something his family has only just begun to talk about.

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SIX DAYS AFTER THE WORST NIGHT OF HIS LIFE — STUDIO 8H, NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 7, 2017 “Like everyone, I’m struggling to understand what happened that night, and how to pick up the pieces and start to heal.” Jason Aldean stood on the cold open stage of Saturday Night Live in a black shirt and a black cowboy hat. SNL had skipped the political comedy sketch that always opened the show. They had given Studio 8H to him instead. Six days earlier, on October 1, 2017, Jason had been performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when something terrible happened in the crowd in front of him. Fifty-eight people lost their lives. Nearly five hundred were hurt. The next day, Tom Petty went into cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu. He died that evening. Jason chose Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” He stood at the microphone with tears in his eyes and never raised his voice. The country singer who lived through the worst night in American festival history chose a song by a man who had died forty-eight hours after that night. And what Jason said backstage before the cameras rolled — most people who watched that broadcast never heard it.

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TWELVE DAYS BEFORE HE DIED, TOBY KEITH SPOKE TO AMERICA ONE LAST TIME — OKLAHOMA, JANUARY 24, 2024 “I just got to a point where I was comfortable with whatever happened.” That’s what Toby Keith told Robin Marsh in his final television interview. It aired on Oklahoma’s News 9 on January 24, 2024. He had twelve days left. Marsh had been chasing the interview for months. She told a friend in Oklahoma City to slip her phone number into Toby’s pocket. He kept it. He called her. She asked him a question most journalists would not ask a dying man. “Have you experienced a peace that passes all understanding?” Toby answered without flinching. “I had my brain wrapped around it, and I was in a good spot either way. People without faith don’t have that.” On February 5, 2024, he died in his sleep, surrounded by his wife Tricia and their three children. Hours later, the Country Music Hall of Fame elected him in. The man who joked about being hard to kill spent his final twelve days making peace with something most people spend a lifetime running from. And what he told Robin Marsh off-camera that day — neither of them ever shared publicly.

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“TO US, OUTLAW MEANT STANDING UP FOR YOUR RIGHTS, YOUR OWN WAY OF DOING THINGS.” That was Waylon Jennings explaining the word that defined a generation of country music — and a movement he didn’t just join, he started. Born June 15, 1937 in Littlefield, Texas, Waylon was Buddy Holly’s bass player at 21 and gave up his seat on the plane that killed Holly in 1959 — a moment he never stopped carrying. By 1972, sick of Nashville producers smothering his records with strings, he tore up his RCA contract and demanded artistic control. No one had done it before. In 1973 he made Honky Tonk Heroes his way — gritty, bass-driven, no studio men, no permission asked. Three years later, Wanted! The Outlaws with Willie Nelson, Jessi Colter and Tompall Glaser became the first country album in history to sell a million copies. He had 16 No. 1 singles and changed Nashville forever — without ever asking it to change for him. On February 13, 2002, Waylon Jennings died in his sleep at his home in Chandler, Arizona, from complications of diabetes. He was 64. And the dozen songs he was quietly recording in his final months — released a full decade after his death — is something his family has only just begun to talk about.

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SIX DAYS AFTER THE WORST NIGHT OF HIS LIFE — STUDIO 8H, NEW YORK CITY, OCTOBER 7, 2017 “Like everyone, I’m struggling to understand what happened that night, and how to pick up the pieces and start to heal.” Jason Aldean stood on the cold open stage of Saturday Night Live in a black shirt and a black cowboy hat. SNL had skipped the political comedy sketch that always opened the show. They had given Studio 8H to him instead. Six days earlier, on October 1, 2017, Jason had been performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when something terrible happened in the crowd in front of him. Fifty-eight people lost their lives. Nearly five hundred were hurt. The next day, Tom Petty went into cardiac arrest at his home in Malibu. He died that evening. Jason chose Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” He stood at the microphone with tears in his eyes and never raised his voice. The country singer who lived through the worst night in American festival history chose a song by a man who had died forty-eight hours after that night. And what Jason said backstage before the cameras rolled — most people who watched that broadcast never heard it.

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TWELVE DAYS BEFORE HE DIED, TOBY KEITH SPOKE TO AMERICA ONE LAST TIME — OKLAHOMA, JANUARY 24, 2024 “I just got to a point where I was comfortable with whatever happened.” That’s what Toby Keith told Robin Marsh in his final television interview. It aired on Oklahoma’s News 9 on January 24, 2024. He had twelve days left. Marsh had been chasing the interview for months. She told a friend in Oklahoma City to slip her phone number into Toby’s pocket. He kept it. He called her. She asked him a question most journalists would not ask a dying man. “Have you experienced a peace that passes all understanding?” Toby answered without flinching. “I had my brain wrapped around it, and I was in a good spot either way. People without faith don’t have that.” On February 5, 2024, he died in his sleep, surrounded by his wife Tricia and their three children. Hours later, the Country Music Hall of Fame elected him in. The man who joked about being hard to kill spent his final twelve days making peace with something most people spend a lifetime running from. And what he told Robin Marsh off-camera that day — neither of them ever shared publicly.

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THE SONG ABOUT A DIVORCE THAT NEVER HAPPENED — NASHVILLE, 1982 “She got the goldmine. I got the shaft.” Jerry Reed sang the line on every stage in America in 1982. The song hit #1 on the country chart. Audiences laughed and slapped the table because they all knew a guy who’d been gutted by a divorce. Everyone assumed Jerry was that man. He wasn’t. Jerry had married Priscilla “Prissy” Mitchell on July 9, 1959. She was a country singer herself, co-credited on a #1 hit in 1965. They had two daughters. The marriage lasted forty-nine years — until the day Jerry died in a Nashville hospice on September 1, 2008. He didn’t even write the song. A young Nashville songwriter named Tim DuBois wrote it. Jerry just sang it — and sold it so completely that an entire generation of fans believed they were hearing his real divorce. Prissy was always somewhere in the room. Sometimes laughing. Sometimes rolling her eyes. The man famous for losing everything in a divorce never lost a thing. And what Prissy said when reporters finally asked her about that song — most country fans have never heard it.