Luke Bryan’s Family Guide: All About His Parents, Sister, Brother and More

Luke Bryan had to navigate a lot of grief early on in his life.

The country singer was born in July 1976 in Leesburg, Georgia, to mom LeClaire Bryan and dad Tommy Bryan. He was the youngest sibling out of brother Chris Bryan and sister Kelly Bryan.

When he was only 19, Luke’s brother Chris died in a car accident in 1996, causing him to pause his move to Nashville and instead attend college at Georgia Southern University.

“When Chris passed away, it was devastating because no one was more fired up about me going to Nashville than him,” Luke shared on the Today show in August 2021.

A little over a decade after Chris’ tragic death, Luke’s sister, Kelly, suddenly passed away in 2007. She was 39 years old. Kelly’s husband, Ben Cheshire, also died seven years later, leaving their kids, Jordan, Kris and Til behind. (Luke and his wife, Caroline Boyer Bryan, adopted the three children.)

“When you start talking about the loss of siblings and even the loss of my brother-in-law — I mean, he was my brother, he had been in my life since I was 7, 8 years old — and the hesitancy is, gosh, you almost feel anxiety of telling aspects of your life that are so tragic,” Luke told Willie Geist in an appearance on the Today show in August 2021.

Keep scrolling to learn more about Luke’s family:

Tommy and LeClaire Bryan

Tommy and LeClaire wed and welcomed three children: Chris, Kelly and Luke. The twosome owned a peanut farm in Leesburg, Georgia, where they raised their three kids before Chris’ death in 1996 and Kelly’s passing in 2007.

LeClaire has continued to give updates on her life on her Instagram, where she has 316,000 followers.

“My mother, it’s funny, she’s kind of chilled out on Instagram, so everybody’s checking on her because she’s been less active on Instagram, and I’m very happy about that,” Luke shared during a special pre-show event in September 2025, per Country Now. “My mother is fine. She’s still asking for the same ludicrous amounts of money once a month, so she’s all good. She’s still chain smoking and chugging Bud Lights.”

Meanwhile Luke’s father, Tommy, still works on his farm — and his work ethic has continued to inspire him in his music career.

“His navigation of business is always cordial and friendly with people. He was never one of those business guys that his route to business was to beat you down,” Luke recalled to ABC Audio in June 2022. “He never wanted to see anybody else go broke or try to force them into something. He was a really polite businessman. I feel like I try to do my business that way.”

Luke added that his father is a “friendly person” who is “big [and] loud.”

“So I got my big, loud voice from him,” he joked.

Chris Bryan

When Luke was going to make the move to Nashville at 19, his older brother, Chris, tragically passed away in a car accident. He was only 26 at the time of his death.

Following Chris’ passing, Luke ended up staying in Georgia and attending Georgia Southern University before moving to Nashville in 2001.

“When Chris passed away, I was 19 years old, fixing to chase my dream. It just totally rocked our family’s world, rocked my world,” he shared in an interview on the Today show in 2021. “It makes you appreciate chasing dreams, you know. You’re like, ‘Hey, you get one go-around at this thing called life and it’s very fragile, so you better go after your dreams.’”

In 2021, Luke debuted an emotional song about his brother’s death called “Songs You Never Heard.”

“I’ve written songs through the years that really talk about me losing my brother, but I don’t think any one of them is as good as how this one describes who he was,” Luke said in an interview with Cat Country 98.1 radio in 2021. “He was a huge country music fan and I just think about how amazing it would be to have him in my life, and how watching him react to all of these songs, and watching him react to my career.”

The lyrics read: “Time marches on, there’s a lot of new / Music and memories we’d be drinking to/ I think about it and I laugh until it hurts / Cause I hear you singing along / To songs you never heard.”

Kelly Bryan

Luke’s older sister, Kelly, married Cheshire and welcomed son Til and daughters Jordan and Kris. In May 2007, Kelly suddenly died at the age of 39.

While the cause of her death was hidden for a long time, Luke finally opened up about what happened in October 2025.

“But there is a very, very small percentage of people that die for no reason in the world,” Luke said in an episode of CNN podcast’s All There Is with Anderson Cooper. “And it’s called sudden death syndrome and that’s essentially what they described my sister’s death as she was in her home doing her laundry … it was like, you know, somebody just turned the switch off on her and it was just tragic beyond words.”

Luke explained that it took “awhile” to receive the diagnosis for his sister, noting that “everything was inconclusive” surrounding her death.

“She had a pretty severe, like, orbital bone injury. So whether she fainted or not, I think she may have went into the floor and kind of knocked herself out,” he said before sharing that Kelly was “everything” in all of their lives. “She was a mother of three children and she was, I mean, the best mother you could ever dream of. And we all leaned on her for so many things and it’s hard to really wrap your brain around her being gone.”

Ben Cheshire

Nearly seven years after Kelly’s unexpected death, Cheshire died of a heart attack in November 2014. He was 46.

Jordan, Kris and Tilden Cheshire

Following Cheshire’s tragic death in 2014, Luke and his wife adopted Kelly and Cheshire’s three kids: Jordan, Kris and Tilden.

“It’s just what you do as a family,” he explained on an episode of CNN’s podcast’s All There Is with Anderson Cooper in October 2025. “And I guess you go into a tribe instinct and you do what you can to kind of make it … But Til it wasn’t necessarily an adoption more like we were, we had to sign paperwork that he’s our responsibility. And watching him come into our home and have to grieve the loss of his dad was really, really tough. And to watch my wife step up and do the work that she had to do was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen.”

Caroline Boyer Bryan

Luke met his wife, Caroline, in college. The twosome split around 2000 for about four years but ended up rekindling and tying the knot in December 2006. The couple went on to welcome their son Thomas “Bo” in March 2008 and son Tatum “Tate” in August 2010.

Thomas ‘Bo’ and Tatum ‘Tate’ Bryan

Luke and Caroline welcomed Bo in 2008, followed by Tate in 2010, before adopting Kelly’s three kids. In an October 2025 interview, Luke shared that all of his kids now have a very special bond with each other.

“My oldest Bo and Til, I mean, it is all brotherly. It looks and smells just like two brothers complaining and fighting and wrestling and giving each other a hard time,” Luke shared on CNN’s podcast’s All There Is with Anderson Cooper. “But with Tate, my 15-year-old and Til, they have a really special bond, and I can’t imagine a household where Til would have never grown up in it. And, I mean, it’s just been a blessing and a silver lining to have him and to watch the girls go through life and become mothers … and get through life daily has been pretty inspiring too. I’m really proud of them.”