Taylor Dye of Maddie & Tae Is Engaged to Songwriter Josh Kerr: 'Can't Wait to Love You Forever'
Taylor Dye of country music duo Maddie & Tae has found happiness after heartbreak.
The “Die From a Broken Heart” singer got engaged to her boyfriend, songwriter Josh Kerr, after more than a year of dating, they announced Tuesday on Instagram.
“Can’t wait to love you forever Joshua Peter Kerr ❤️ WE’RE ENGAGED!!!!!!!!!!” Dye, 23, captioned a series of photos from the moment Kerr, 27, popped the question on Labor Day.
A post shared by tae of maddie & tae (@taylordye) on Sep 3, 2019 at 7:49am PDT
In the first photo from the set, which were taken by Nashville-based photographer Angelina Oliva, Dye’s emerald-cut diamond engagement ring is on full display as she and Kerr share a kiss on the front porch of their new home in Tennessee. In the last, Dye shows off her ring as she gets a piggyback ride from Kerr.
Maddie & Tae’s official band Instagram and Twitter pages shared the same set of photos with the caption, “I’M ENGAGED to the man of my dreams y’all.”
I’M ENGAGED to the man of my dreams y’all 😭😭😭😭❤️💍 // 📷: @angelinaoliva
A post shared by Maddie & Tae (@maddieandtae) on Sep 3, 2019 at 7:59am PDT
On Kerr’s Instagram page, he posted some of the same photos as Dye, including the one of himself getting down on one knee and the one of him and Dye sharing a kiss. Additionally, he shared new photos of Dye drinking champagne straight out of the bottle and a close-up of the engagement ring.
“Bought the house. got the ring. asked her dad. got the girl. 💍💍 forever started Sept 2nd. I love you @taylordye,” Kerr captioned the photos.
A post shared by Josh Kerr (@joshkerrmusic) on Sep 3, 2019 at 7:49am PDT
Dye’s Maddie & Tae bandmate Maddie Marlow — who also got engaged to longtime boyfriend Jonah Font in May 2018 — congratulated the couple on her Instagram Story, writing, “He put a ring on it!!! Congrats @taylordye & @joshkerrmusic!!!!”
In a PEOPLE-exclusive peek behind the scenes of filming the music video for Maddie & Tae’s current single, “Die from a Broken Heart,” Dye revealed that she used her own experience with heartbreak as her muse when she acted out the tragic narrative.
“Everyone is about to get a front-row seat to my biggest heartbreak,” Dye said in the BTS video which was released last month.
Dye told PEOPLE that a major motivation to be so revealing was the number of fans who shared their own heartbreaks with her and Marlow, 24.
“Honestly, I felt like a really big hypocrite,” she said. “We released this song, and while we were talking about it, no one knew what I was going through when we wrote it because I hadn’t really expressed that. I hadn’t told anyone that, hey, this was really hard for me. Everyone was being so vulnerable and sharing their stories, and I felt like I should give them the same respect.”
In fact, Dye and Marlow co-wrote the song with Jonathan Singleton and Deric Ruttan just two weeks after Dye’s breakup from singer Jackie Lee in 2017. Singleton was the one who suggested the title, and the other three joined in to flesh out the idea.
“We came up with this super-vulnerable phone call between us and our moms,” Marlow recalled, “and we just started talking about our heartbreaks, what those conversations sounded like and started putting that into the song. But I knew what Tae was going through, and so I was kind of trying to protect her from having to go super-deep to where it was going to ruin the day, but also let her heal a little bit through songwriting.”
By the time the duo started performing the song a year later, Dye said, the pain had been in the past for a few months. “I definitely healed by then,” she said.
While filming the music video, Dye said she also knew she didn’t have to bring any heartbreak home with her. “One of the weirdest parts for me, with releasing this video, is a lot of people are assuming that it’s about my current relationship,” she said. “I’m like, ‘No, no, no, no, no, that’s good.’”
A post shared by tae of maddie & tae (@taylordye) on Aug 28, 2019 at 1:28pm PDT
In fact, Dye credited Kerr’s presence in her life with helping her deliver the performance.
“He has opened my emotions like a friggin’ floodgate in the best way,” she said. “I feel like I’m able to articulate my emotions and not feel so ashamed of going there, and he’s been the one to teach me that. So literally the day of the video shoot, I was just so thankful that I have him in my life. He makes me feel so comfortable to go there emotionally.”
Maddie & Tae are currently playing select dates, and they’ll soon head back out on tour with Carrie Underwood on Sept. 12.
