After the country star and former NFL player stepped out together on the 2023 ACM Awards red carpet for the first time in May, Wilson, 31, admitted they have been dating for quite some time.
“He’s been around for a while. I just decided to make him wait for two and a half years,” she laughed on “The Bobby Bones Show.”
The “Yellowstone” star added that Hodges, 27, is “a good dude” and continued to explain why they decided to wait to publicly debut their relationship.
“He knows what it’s like chasing a dream because he’s done that for himself,” Wilson said. “He was in the NFL. He tried out literally for the [Pittsburgh] Steelers and made it and had a really great run with them. Went out to L.A. Rams and did that.”
The “Things a Man Oughta Know” singer noted that Hodges is equally supportive of her career goals and went on to gush about her beau.
“But I’ll tell you, he is good as gold. Supports me, would never come in between anything that I’m trying to do. He’s like, ‘Go get it, girl.’ And I made him wait for a while. I mean… it’s been a little over two years now,” she said.
During the interview, Wilson discussed how dating rumors surfaced about the two after she wore a Steelers jersey with Hodges’ name on it during a Pittsburgh concert with Luke Combs.
“Well, what’s funny is literally a couple weeks before the show, we had played out in Pittsburgh and me and my band, we all wore ‘Duck’ Hodges jerseys. And so that kind of started a few rumors,” Wilson remarked.
Shortly after, fans called out that moment on social media and tagged Hodges on Twitter.
“Did she really?!?! Y’all are lying !!!! @laineywilson holla at me !!!” he teased to fans.
Wilson replied, “This is me hollerin.” Hodges then responded back, “OH.MY.GOD hello.”
Since the couple’s exchange, Hodges has continuously cheered on Wilson with a few lovely tweets.
“Lainey Wilson damnnn she’s so gooooood,” he shared in April.
Later in the month, Hodges tweeted, “SHOOTIN MY SHOT !” as he directed the comment to his country star girlfriend.
The “Heart Like a Truck” songstress swooned over her partner and said Hodges co-mingled with her country star friends effortlessly.
“It’s so great. I mean, he’s buddies with all my buddies. He’ll FaceTime me, and he’ll be with HARDY, or he’ll be with Cole Swindell and all of them. I’m like, ‘Can you please stop taking my friends?'” Wilson joked.
Wilson also detailed how Hodges got the nickname “Duck.”
“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 he and the team just kind of started calling him ‘Duck,'” she explained.
Wilson added Hodges was also, coincidentally, a duck hunter.