Why Gabby Barrett Shared A Throwback Engagement Photo With Her Husband

Gabby Barrett shared a throwback photo of the moment her husband popped the question.

Barrett, 25, met her husband, Cade Foehner, 29, when the two artists were competing on American Idol in 2018. They got married in October 2019, and have since welcomed three children together: Baylah May, born in January 2021, Augustine Boone, born in October 2022, and Ivy Josephine, born in February 2024. Barrett recently said that her latest single, “The Easy Part,” is “not direct to my life — I’m happily married with a billion children, and it’s all good — but I feel it from afar.”

Barrett referenced the lyrics of her new breakup ballad when she shared two photos with Foehner on Instagram. The first captures the proposal, and the second shows the couple on stage together. Barrett wrote “a ring on my finger” on the engagement snapshot, and “a smile on my face” on the next slide. She sings in the second verse of “The Easy Part”: “In the middle of the night/ You'll still be reachin' for me/ And you won't even know where I'll be/ But I'll be with a new somebody who/ Is puttin' a ring on my finger, a smile on my face/ Tells me the things that you just couldn't say/ I’ll be the one that you let get away/ And you'll find out too late.”

“If you need me, I’ll be with my ‘new somebody,’” Barrett wrote in her caption on Instagram, tagging her husband (she also clarified that the photo was taken more than six years ago when some commenters wondered whether the engagement was recent).

Barrett wrote “The Easy Part” with Zach Abend, Jon Nite, and Michael Hardy (HARDY). It was produced by Zach Kale, Zach Abend, and Ross Copperman. Barrett said in a statement when the single made its debut earlier this month: “I enjoyed writing on this one. It captures that emotional moment when someone thinks leaving is ‘The Easy Part,’ but what they don’t realize is that the memory of who you were to them will be the hardest to forget. It’s not about encouraging walking away, but about the weight that love can carry even after it’s gone. In some ways, it feels like a distant cousin to ‘I Hope,’ [Barrett’s breakout single she released in 2019] It’s a different kind of heartbreak, one that settles in slow and quiet.”