When you're on the outside looking in, country music power couple Faith Hill and Tim McGraw have the perfect life: They both have successful decades-long careers as some of the best-selling artists, and a beautiful family, including three daughters Audrey, Maggie, and Gracie.
However, country music's beloved couple did not always have it easy.
McGraw, who was born in Delhi, Louisiana in 1967, grew up thinking that his mother's husband, a trucker named Horace Smith, was his father. It wasn't until he was 11 years old that he found a box that contained his birth certificate, and it listed baseball player Tug McGraw as his biological father.
The "Live Like You Were Dying" singer eventually met with his father, who played for the New York Mets as well as the Philadelphia Phillies at the height of his career, but at the time, he showed little interest in having a relationship with him.
Turns out, being rejected by a parent is something he has in common with his wife.
Hill, who also born in 1967 in Ridgeland, Mississippi, was given up for adoption as an infant. A couple who lived in the nearby town of Star, Edna and Ted Perry, wanted a daughter to complete their family, so they raised her along with their two biological sons.
When Hill was in her 20s, she moved to Nashville to pursue a career in music and also look for her birth mother. She managed to locate her, and discovered that she was a professional painter. She also learned the truth about why her biological mother gave her away, and it's a far cry from what the Perrys told her whilst growing up.
In an interview with Billboard last year, Hill opened up about what it was like to be adopted, and she candidly spoke about the lie her parents repeatedly told her before she met her birth mother.
"I used to think there was some kind of conspiracy, that I must be the daughter of one of my aunts. And of course I used to dream I was Elvis' daughter," Hill told Billboard. "I have a great family: salt of the earth, hardworking. But I'm a gypsy at heart. I had a spirit that was completely outside what my family was. I didn't know anyone I was related to, biologically, which gives you a sense of not knowing who you are."
Hill explained that whenever she asked Ted and Edna about her biological mother, they told her that she put her up for adoption because "she had an affair with a married man."
It wasn't until she found her mother that she was able to learn the truth. Hill's mother was unable to care for her at the time of her birth, so she made the decision to give her to a family who could. She did end up marrying Hill's father, and had another child with him, but she didn't try to get Hill back.
Hill told the music magazine that getting to know her mother helped her understand herself better. Still, she admitted that she kept their "relationship at bay" up until she passed away in 2007.
McGraw told the publication that at the time of Hill's mother's death, the pair were "just getting to know one another better." Hill's biological father died years prior in a car accident.
Thankfully, McGraw was beside the "This Kiss" singer the entire time, and all their painful experiences only made them stronger.
Do you know anyone who was adopted? Let us know!