Who is Lainey Wilson’s soon-to-be husband?
Award-winning country music star Lainey Wilson plans to two-step down the aisle with fiancé Devlin “Duck” Hodges one day soon.
The 32-year-old hitmaker has been dating the 28-year-old former football player since 2021, taking their relationship public in 2023.
Now that the two have revealed their engagement news, fans want to know all about the cowboy who’s been by Wilson’s side and inspiring some of her sweetest songs.
Read on to learn more about the honey in “Hang Tight Honey.”
He played football at Samford University
Long before Hodges fell in love with Wilson, he fell hard for his favorite sport — football.
The Kimberly, Alabama-born athlete discovered his fondness for the game back in elementary school and continued playing the sport through college.
At Samford University, he was a starter for the Bulldogs and showed major potential. In 2018, his standout offensive plays earned him the coveted Walter Payton Award.
He played for the Pittsburgh Steelers
Hodges went pro in 2019. An undrafted free agent, he was signed by the Pittsburgh Steelers and stepped in as quarterback for Mason Rudolph when he suffered an injury.
Hodges remained with the Steelers until the following season. In 2021, he signed a reserve contract with the Los Angeles Rams.
These days, he’s a ‘cheerleader’
Hodges left the NFL later that same year, then spent some time with the Canadian Football League’s Ottawa Redblacks. In 2022, he retired from professional football altogether. Now, he’s a cheerleader — of sorts.
While Hodges officially works in real estate now, according to Wilson, he’s so happy about her success in the country music spotlight, he’s genuinely content to cheer her on from the sidelines.
“Thankfully, I have found a man that is so happy that he’s with a lady that can do her own thing,” she said in a 2024 interview with Billboard. “He’s just my cheerleader. He makes it real easy and it’s fun to be able to share this part of my life that I’ve kept … close to my chest, I guess you could say, for a while.”
He goes by ‘Duck’
Anyone who’s ever heard Wilson speak about her main man knows she refers to him exclusively by his nickname, Duck, as do many others close to him. But why?
The obvious answer might be that he earned the moniker as a result of his love of duck hunting and competitive prowess when it comes to duck calling.
According to a profile published on the Mossy Oak website, Hodges has had a passion for waterfowling since childhood, learning to hunt with his father and brother. At the age of 13, Hodges won the 2009 Junior World Duck Calling Contest, followed by a win at the Alabama State Duck Calling Championship in 2018.
According to Wilson, though, there’s more to the nickname’s story.
“If you read something online, it probably ain’t right,” she said of Hodges’ nickname during a 2023 visit to “The Bobby Bones Show.” “His college football coach was like, ‘You’re one of the best quarterbacks I’ve ever worked with. And you remind me a lot of one of my favorite quarterbacks I got to work with years ago, and we called him Duck.’ And so, him and the team just kind of started calling him Duck.”
He proposed with a multi-diamond ring
On Feb. 12, 2025, Wilson revealed that she and Hodges were engaged by sharing photos and a video clip on Instagram.
“4x4xU forever ❤️,” she wrote in the caption, referencing her loved-up single of the same name.
Though Wilson didn’t reveal how Hodges proposed, she did show off the spectacular multi-diamond ring he proposed with. In the video clip, she even walks with a limp, harking back to a comment she made last fall.
“I don’t care what shape it is, but I want to be walking with a limp,” she said of her future ring on the “Country Heat Weekly” podcast.
Even if Hodges hadn’t popped the question when he did, the couple might be engaged by now anyway. Wilson noted to Bunnie XO in a New Year’s Eve chat for CMT posted to Instagram she was prepared to step up and ask him.
“I might have to propose to him,” Wilson said with a laugh after her pal expressed hope for some engagement news soon. “We waitin’!”
Months before, Wilson joked about the topic to Taste of Country, saying, “I guess I’m going to have to propose to his ass, ’cause he ain’t proposed to me.”
He’s the inspiration for some of her songs
Those pre-proposal comments weren’t the only hints Wilson was ready to lock things down with Hodges. The biggest hint of all might just be her 2024 song “Counting Chickens.”
The track, from her fifth studio album, “Whirlwind,” is all about being ready for a proposal (and a wedding, home and family, too), featuring the lyrics, “Oh, and I ain’t tryin’ to scare ya/ Make you high tail fly the coop/ But I’m counting on ya, baby/ Hope you’re counting on me too.”
The song ends with a hat tip to who she’s counting on: “One chicken, two chickens, three chickens/ Oh, shoot, I think that’s a duck.”
According to Wilson, she’s penned other songs about Hodges, too, though many of those aren’t for fans’ ears.
During her chat with Taste of Country, she explained that she sings all her songs for Hodges before anyone else, including the ones “I’ve written for him that nobody else will hear.”
He’s frequently her plus-one
When Wilson opened up about Hodges to Billboard, she mentioned that he “can’t sing a lick.” But even though he’s no country crooner, he’s found himself at several music-award ceremonies.
Since going public with their relationship, Hodges has become a fixture at many of country music’s biggest events as Wilson’s date.
