Toby Keith was a plumber for all intents and purposes, at least that’s what his daughter, Krystal Keith, remembers telling her friends who begged to know more about her dad.
Growing up in the Keith household was fairly normal for Krystal, despite her dad achieving instant country music star status with his ‘93 breakout hit, “Should’ve Been a Cowboy.”
Curious outsiders looking for a way into Krystal’s life would ask what her father did for a living, to which she often said her dad had a normal 9-to-5 gig.
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“I think I thought everybody’s dad had a job like my dad … he might as well have been a plumber,” Krystal exclusively told Fox News Digital. “In fact, that’s what I told people he did. Later on in life, when people would find out who he was, and then they would come ask me a question I knew they knew the answer, they’d be like, ‘What does your dad do for a living?’ I’d be like, ‘He’s a plumber.’
“And they’d be like, ‘What’s his name?’ And it was always Mark.”
If friends weren’t convinced of Krystal’s story, she had a backup plan with an easily recognizable name.
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“My second favorite thing was to say Garth Brooks, because they were already, like, they knew he was a singer,” she said. “They were expecting Toby Keith, and I’d be like, ‘My dad’s Garth Brooks!’
“I never wanted to give them what they expected.”
Krystal was just a kid when Toby released his first song, but she remembered that not much changed at home despite his superstar status.
“We had an incredibly normal childhood, so it wasn’t like our lives changed drastically,” she said. “It was just, the things we were able to afford became a little bit different. My mom wasn’t stressing about, you know, where the light bill was getting paid. I mean, that was something we never knew anything about from the time we lived in a trailer.”
“We could have been rich then. I didn’t know the difference. We never wanted for anything … we always had everything we needed.”
Krystal, her sister, Shelley, and brother Stelen had a “gradual shift” in their lifestyle by being able to travel and participate in their father’s shows simply because they could afford more access.
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“He stayed the same throughout,” Krystal said. “It was really just the people around us changed and the way they treated us and the way they talked to us about him changed.
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“And that’s what kind of, as a child, showed me that, oh, this isn’t normal; he’s not like everyone else’s dad.”
When Krystal forged her own path in the music industry, her dad handed down words of wisdom in his own “Toby Keith” way.
“He never said, ‘Don’t do this or don’t do that.’ He was like, ‘You can do whatever you want to do, but here’s my advice on it, and you can take it or leave it,'” Krystal remembered. “And he really let me carve my own path and … he rarely was like, ‘Hey, I’ve got this idea for you.’ He just always let me come to my own ideas and lead things the way I wanted to lead them.
“When I got stuck, or I had, kind of needed some advice or needed a push, I would go in and be like, ‘Hey, what do you think about this song?’ and he would give me his advice then.”
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On Wednesday, Krystal performed alongside a star-studded roster in the television special “Toby Keith: American Idol” – a tribute to the late country icon who died Feb. 5 after a lengthy battle with cancer.
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New “American Idol” host Carrie Underwood covered Keith’s “A Little Less Talk and a Lot More Action” while Lainey Wilson covered “Beer For My Horses” after riding into the Bridgestone Arena in downtown Nashville on a horse.
Giving back to the community was paramount for Toby, a longtime advocate for pediatric cancer research and advocacy through the Toby Keith Foundation. The event supported the Toby Keith Foundation’s OK Kids Korral, a center for children and their families receiving cancer treatment, which provides day and night lodging at no cost.
“We were handed a legacy that nobody can touch,” Krystal said. “He really just has this incredible legacy that he has left behind. Then we as a family just said, ‘Hey, this is on our shoulders. This is our duty to carry this out.’ He was really concerned with … if he didn’t make it through cancer, who’s going to carry this torch?”
She added, “It’s really a special place, and we need it to continue. Our community needs it. Kids from across the nation come to be treated. It’s an incredible hospital. It means a lot to our whole family.”
