Heavy/Getty Country star Luke Bryan
On his rare days off from touring, recording new music and appearing as a judge on “American Idol,” country superstar Luke Bryan loves to spend time with his family, including his wife Caroline Boyer Bryan and their sons, 12-year-old Tate and 15-year-old Bo. But teaching his teen how to drive has been a “nightmare,” the singer just revealed in a new radio interview.
“He’s very frustrating right now because he thinks he knows how to drive,” he said during an appearance on Audacy’s Katie & Company on June 29, 2023.
But the apple may not fall far from the tree. Bryan’s mom, LeClaire Bryan, recently revealed that her famous son wasn’t always the easiest kid to parent either. Here’s what you need to know:
Luke & Caroline Bryan Are ‘Terrified’ As Son Bo Learns How to Drive
On May 4, Caroline posted an Instagram video of their son Bo behind the wheel and wrote, “Bo Bryan just got his driver’s permit. Some of y’all might want to take the bus for a while! 🤡 🚘 Here we go!!”
In the selfie video taken from the passenger seat, with her youngest Tate cheering from the backseat, she says, “Bo just passed his driver’s permit test. I’m terrified.”
“Just don’t be screaming while I drive, please,” Bo asks his mom, to which she replies, “I make no promises.”
In the two months since that video, Bo has clearly not increased his parents’ confidence in his driving skills.
“He’s 15 so he’s doing the whole learner’s permit nightmare,” Bryan told Katie & Company host Katie Neal. “He is not a very good driver right now, so we’re having to work with him pretty hard.”
“He’s very frustrating right now because he thinks he knows how to drive,” he continued, “but he has no idea what he’s doing. He thinks because he can operate a four-wheeler or Polaris that he is quite proficient, but he is not, I assure you.”
What the 15-year-old is apparently good at right now is fishing, given that he recently caught his first 10-pound bass — a feat that his dad didn’t achieve until recently.
“It took him 15 years, it took me 46 years,” Bryan joked to Neal.
In addition to raising their own two boys, Bryan and wife Caroline adopted their nephew and two nieces in 2014, according to People. In 2007, Bryan’s sister Kelly died unexpectedly and in 2014, her husband Ben Cheshire died of a heart attack, leaving behind teenage daughters Jordan and Kris and younger son Tilden. Though all three are now grown, their presence makes for a busy family life for the Bryans.
Luke Bryan’s Mom Sees Similarities in Grandson Bo & His Dad Luke
Bryan’s own mom, 75-year-old LeClaire Bryan, can attest to Bo being obsessed with fishing, which runs in the family. On June 11, she appeared with her daughter-in-law Caroline on the “Got It From My Momma” podcast and shared a funny story about Bo taking all of her fishing gear.
An avid fisher herself, LeClaire said that the day before, while staying at the family’s Tennessee farm, she had to go pick up some new fishing poles at Wal-Mart in order to go fishing on their property.
“When I go to Luke’s, I want to fish a lot,” she said. “There’s about one thousand fishing poles at Luke’s but none of them work anymore. They’re destroyed by the boys, all the children.”
“So I run to Wal-Mart, got two little fishing poles,” she continued. “Got me a little tackle box because I needed it, got me a new pair of pliers.”
But as soon as she settled in on the dock, she said, her grandson Bo showed up and asked if he could have one of her new fishing poles to go fishing on the nearby creek. She let him have it, she said, but then he decided he needed more.
As the audience laughed, LeClaire said, “He looked down at my little tackle box and he said, ‘Oh, I need these pliers.’ By the time he left, I didn’t have nothing. I’m just sitting!”
But LeClaire, who often accompanies her famous son on trips, including to Cancun in January, said the star was the same way growing up as Bo is — always on the go and looking for ways to have fun.
“He has never stopped one minute,” she said when asked what Bryan was like growing up. “Full of mischief, full of fun. I mean, if you couldn’t find him, just go to the woods and keep hollering ‘Luke!’ and you’d find him somewhere in the woods.”
Bryan was also into playing guitar and performed in his high school’s theater program, including starring in a production of “Annie Get Your Gun.” His mom said she knew from the time he was little that his love of music might take him far.
“I knew that when Luke was a tiny baby,” she told “Got It From My Mama” host Jennifer Vickery Smith. “I rocked Luke all the time and I hummed ‘Rock of Ages’ and before he could talk, he could hum ‘Rock of Ages.’ He’s always been an entertainer.”
And though her youngest son may have been “full of mischief” growing up, she said “he was real sweet.”
“He didn’t have a mean bone in his body,” she said, “and he doesn’t now. I mean, he’s just kind and fun and he’s real loving.”