The Real Story Of How Garth Brooks Became The Most Successful Country Singer Of All Time

Who do you think is the highest selling musical artist in America? Names like Elvis, Metallica, and Madonna come to mind, but none of them hold a candle to the record sales achieved by ya boi Garth Brooks.

In 2015, with his album "Man Against Machine" Brooks surpassed the King's RIAA record of 134.5 million units sold with 135 million units to become the best-selling solo artist in the US. It turns out that Brooks and Elvis have been playing a game of musical tug of war with this RIAA record for years, at least since 2007 when Brooks nabbed the top spot from Presley when they had both sold the measly sum of 123 and 118.5 million units. 

Brooks began his acting career in earnest when he appeared as an abusive husband in the video for "The Thunder Rolls," in 1990. Although he would go on to play the straight man to Will Ferrell in a memorable SNL sketch, Brooks' filmography is nothing to brag about. It could have been much more illustrious, however, if he'd kept his ego in check. A lawsuit filed by his business partner, Lisa Sanderson, in 2013 claims that Brooks tanked what could have been multiple lucrative deals by acting like a crazy person.

First, he refused to star in Twister because the tornado was the real star, and then he turned down a role in Saving Private Ryan because he didn't want to appear alongside Tom Hanks, an actor he admired, and he believed no one would want to watch the movie. 

You can't keep good ol' Garth down, so why do you keep trying? "The Thunder Rolls," the massive single from his 1990 album No Fences has a third verse that was omitted from the recording where he details a distraught woman grabbing a gun from her dresser to either kill herself or her abusive husband. People go nuts when he sings the verse live, however, because who doesn't like a 30 second revenge film?

When it came time to make a video for the single Brooks decided that they should act out this portion of the song to tie the two versions together, but CMT really didn't like that and they banned the video for condoning "gratuitous violence [and] social issues." Yes, whatever you do please don't educate the CMT audience about domestic violence. After the dust up CMT agreed to air the video if Brooks would film a PSA about the video. He said no way, and decided to sell a collection of his music videos featuring the unedited video for “The Thunder Rolls.” 

So technically Chris Gaines (the Australian pop star alter ego of Garth Brooks) wasn't actually playing country music, but how else could you describe the alter ego of the world's biggest country star? At the time of the Chris Gaines announcement, Brooks received a TON of bad press. Not only was this kind of a dumb idea, but country music so rarely allows its stars to create art outside of the Nashville box that it's miraculous that Brooks wasn't tarred and feathered for trying to spice up his life by playing a sex addicted pop idol from down under. 

The weirdest part about the Chris Gaines debacle isn't the music, it's the fact that this character stems from a script that Brooks was working on called "...The Lamb" that was supposedly about a stalker who's following Gaines on tour. The Chris Gaines album that miraculously saw release was actually a "pre-soundtrack" for the film that never was. What a crying shame. 

Not because he still has his hoop earring in, but because at the height of his success Garth Brooks took a break to play professional baseball for both the San Diego Padres and the New York Mets. In 1999 he was drafted to San Diego's amateur team where he went 1-for-22, an average of .045, and played left field.

Following his season playing for San Diego's AAA team he moved onto the Giants, then he finally bowed out of the game after playing with the Kansas City Royals minor league team where he hit an infield single off the Mariners' Mike Myers. Brooks later said of the hit, "I was even more surprised than the pitcher." 

What is up with Garth Brooks and adding extra verses to his songs that don't make it to the album? It's like, dude, we already want to come see you fly around a football stadium on a rope while you play your hit tunes, don't make us learn all new words to your song, you know?

Not only does his domestic violence anthem "The Thunder Rolls" have a third verse about a woman shooting someone to death (Is it her? Is it her husband? Is it Garth?!), but his all time party song "Friends in Low Places" has a third verse that's basically just the second verse, but with a raunchy twist. Oh Mr. Brooks, you're ever the mischievous artist.