Back in August 1997, Lee Kernaghan was, in his own words, “down in the doldrums.” He’d recently broken up with his girlfriend, the ending not a decision of his own making. Readjusting to single life in Sydney, he was keeping busy working on his fourth album when he received a call to do a show at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast. Travelling was the last thing he felt like doing. And then he was “struck by lightning.”
Well, that’s how it felt to Lee when he first sighted the woman who would become his future wife and mother of his two sons.
“I was sound-checking and in walked Robby McKelvie from Wyrallah, New South Wales,” he says. “It changed my life.”
Robby, a fellow musician, was also in town to perform. As Lee finished his sound check, he spotted her sitting down at a piano where she “sang like a songbird, playing this beautiful music, and I was gone for all money at that point.”
At this time, Lee, 33, was a fully-fledged star. His 1992 debut album, The Outback Club, had revolutionised Australian country music and begun his long run of hit records, ARIA Awards and an impressive 38 Golden Guitar wins.
Robby, meanwhile, was juggling recording voice-overs and jingles with live gigs with her own band. A classically-trained pianist, she was into jazz and R&B, country music far from her usual repertoire. And she had absolutely no idea who Lee was.
But when the duo bumped into each other later that night at the hotel bar, their conversation took them both by surprise. They sat down at the grand piano and played some songs together. Lee ordered a bottle of champagne. He was celebrating meeting her, he told Robby of this extravagant purchase. They talked about their lives, their families, their hopes and dreams.
“I felt,” says Lee, “in this conversation, that it was an epiphany – that I was looking at the woman who would one day be the mother of my children. I felt certain about it. It was an inner knowing. But she had no clue!”
“A lot of guys talk about themselves and try to impress you,” Robby says today of what first struck her about the man she has since built a life with. “But Lee was the first person who was actually really interested in me. He listened. And I left that night thinking, ‘My gosh, he’s such a beautiful human’.”
As they parted ways that evening, it could well have been the end of it. The following morning, Robby was heading to Brisbane, where she was based, while Lee had more shows to do. But as she made the drive back, Lee kept her company. The duo talked on the phone for two hours, making plans to meet again.
“I thought I’d made not only a best friend but that I’d found someone I’d known forever,” Robby says of her reaction. “When you meet your soulmates in life, you just know you’re from the same tribe. You feel comfortable and like you’ve known each other for an eternity.”
One week later, Lee organised a trip to Brisbane. Arriving at the airport with nothing but a keyboard under his arm, he had a gift for Robby, who was waiting to pick him up. In the days since they’d parted, he’d written a song called Found You Again. They had yet to share a first kiss, but so strong was their connection that he felt they must have met in a past lifetime.
As he sang for her, so began an epic love story. Within months, Robby had taken a crash course in country music and was on the road full-time as part of Lee’s touring band (although, Lee notes, he’s never played Found You Again publicly). And while, like all couples, they may have weathered a few storms along the way, that love is as strong today as it was in those giddy early months – their connection evident as they sit down with The Weekly after our photo shoot.
There was a last-minute location change today, Cyclone Alfred foiling our plans to shoot at the pair’s Gold Coast home. Instead, we are at a friend’s property as their own massive clean-up begins. “We had eight huge trees come down. They completely blocked access to the house. We really copped it,” says Lee of the carnage that ensued in weather which devastated many in the area.
They are fortunate, they know. And given they have spent decades touring the country raising funds for communities in need, they’re not complaining about their lot.
Robby joined Lee just as he was launching his Pass The Hat Around Australia tour in 1998. The idea was born as a way to help struggling country towns and communities that were doing it tough – through drought or floods or other events beyond their control.
Radio legend John Laws had heard about the tour plans and asked his listeners to write in if they wanted Lee Kernaghan to come and play in their town.
“The promise was that every dollar raised in the town, stayed in the town,” says Lee.
And so began a journey which – along with his Spirit Of The Bush tour – has since raised millions of dollars across the years.
“Suddenly, we were getting truckloads of letters sent to us,” Robby says. “I remember just sitting on the floor of Lee’s apartment and going through hundreds of letters and then ringing people to ask, ‘Do you have an oval? Do you have a local Rotary Club or whatever that can support this?’
“And that was the foundation of how we work together in business as well – we just support each other. We are very yin and yang, but we are like pieces of the jigsaw that fit together. I’ve got some fortes, Lee has some fortes, and together we can do most things.”
“Throughout all these years,” adds Lee with a smile, “whether we are writing a song in the studio together or out on tour, she’s my best mate. She’s my North Star.”
But back to that tour. Robby had joined Lee in the studio prior to hitting the road. She’d met his manager as well as his mates and they were equally taken by the bubbly blonde. At the time, Lee recalls, he had a song called Skinny Dippin’ which would see audiences fling off some of their own clothes as they sang along.
“I thought, if Robby can put up with the mayhem of a Lee Kernaghan concert, I’m going to propose,” he says now.
That moment came at the end of the Queensland leg of the tour. The duo checked into the Sheraton Grand Mirage Resort in Port Douglas. Lee popped the question as they took a sunset walk along the beach. They didn’t make a public announcement but in the guest book, as they checked out, Lee wrote, “An historic night”, alongside his signature.
Fast forward a few months and the hotel manager got in touch. Jerry Seinfeld had been staying at the resort at the same time and signed beneath Lee’s message, adding, “I wonder what that means?” The manager sent them a photocopy of the page and they thought no more about it. Until, 18 months later, they were in Los Angeles where they planned to elope. Walking into a restaurant on Sunset Boulevard, they were enjoying their final pre-wedding meal when none other than the famous comedian himself came in and took a seat at the table next to them.
“He was eating a Caesar salad,” Robby noticed, when they finally plucked up the courage to introduce themselves. “I explained what he’d written in the visitors’ book and said, ‘We’re getting married tomorrow. Do you remember writing that?’”
Turns out he did and was happy to hear the mystery solved. “I almost expected to see him at the birth of our kids,” laughs Robby now of the coincidence.
Part of what drew them to each other from the start was their shared love of family. So it’s unsurprising that not long after their 1999 wedding they began a family of their own.
Their first son, Jet, arrived in 2001. Second child Rock followed a year later.
“Our boys are the other lights of my life,” proud father Lee says of the duo who would grow up on the road, living in hotels and tour buses, thriving on the adventures that travelling our great land brought their way.
“We just made it work. Family is the glue that holds all the bits together,” Robby adds of those early years. “They’re great kids, we’re really blessed.”
As they’ve gone from those toddler to teen and now adult years, Robby adds, they’ve also become incredibly honest sounding boards for any musical endeavours. The entire Kernaghan family has been in the music business since Lee was a twinkle in his own dad’s eye, so it’s no surprise Jet and Rock are now following suit.
Both are talented songwriters and music producers, and together with their mum and dad have been working on an app platform called StarKix, which connects musicians (and others in the public eye) to their fans with live virtual meet and greets.
“I think of all the people who have gone out to my concerts around Australia and bought my records and they are like family to me,” Lee says of what led to the venture. “It provides an interface to have one-on-one communication on demand.”
In May, Lee – with Robby as always by his side – began the final Boys From The Bush: The Concert tour across the country.
Life on the road still excites him.
“Songs can become your friends, and when you look out and see three generations of people in the audience singing along with every word, it is a buzz,” he says. “We might be driving 200, 300 or 400 kilometres between shows. Normally you are in the bubble of your own area. Seeing the areas outside of your own world is really fun. Every town has its own unique energy, and to experience that makes you so much more expanded as a human – to see just how diverse and beautiful our country is.
“I’ve been blessed to have had a career playing the music I love; writing songs about the country that I love. I feel an enormous debt of gratitude to the country and to the people who have given me the privilege to do what I do today.”
Head to leekernaghan.com for tour dates and to purchase tickets for Boys From The Bush: The Concert.
This feature originally appeared in the June 2025 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. Pick up the latest magazine at your local newsagents or SUBSCRIBE so you never miss an issue!
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