Garth Brooks News

(3/26/01, 1 p.m. ET) -- The details of Garth Brooks's divorce from his wife of 14 years, Sandy, will remain private at the request of the singer's lawyers. The entire file is now closed from public view since Nashville Judge Marietta Shipley has placed the Brooks divorce case under seal, according to the Tennessean. Brooks filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences in November, and his wife filed her response in December.

Making the decision to divorce was a long and painful process for Garth and Sandy, who remain friends. The experience has left the singer doubting his abilities as a husband, as he tells LAUNCH: "I don't have any faith in myself as a husband at this point. I do as a father, but I do have a lot of faith in myself as a friend to my wife. Those are things you stare at the ceiling and you think about, like all of us do, at night."

The end of the superstar's marriage coincided with the end of his career as a touring artist, something Garth says he knew he would face sooner or later: "I've done my career with the whole saying of 'burn bright, burn fast.' I wasn't going to be somebody that we could come to really appreciate like Billy Joel or James Taylor, and know that their stuff was timeless. I knew mine was going to be up and it was gonna be gone, and thank God for the rocks in this business like Reba McEntire and George Strait, but those people are gonna do that. I'm doing the here today, and hopefully, if I'm a trivia question 10 years from now, I pray to God the guy gets it right, you know?"

Garth is currently sifting through songs for his next album, which fans can expect some time this year. The singer splits his time between Nashville and Oklahoma, where Sandy and his three daughters now live.

-- Margy Holland, Nashville

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