Clint Black Crashes Interview, While Lisa Hartman Black Reflects on ‘When I Said I Do’ Meaning

Barb Oates 36 minutes ago

Clint Black, Lisa Hartman Black — Credit Firooz Zahedi/Lifetime

What To Know

Clint Black and Lisa Hartman Black’s iconic duet “When I Said I Do” inspired the new Lifetime original movie of the same name.
The couple, married for nearly 35 years, reflect on the song’s enduring impact and their personal journey, with Lisa shares her initial hesitation in recording the duet.
Both Clint and Lisa appear in the film as relationship podcasters, contributing to a story about love, grief, and second chances starring Sarah Drew and Eric Johnson.

Nestled at their home in Nashville, country music legend Clint Black sat with the woman he adores, his wife of almost 35 years, Lisa Hartman Black, watching the rough cut of the film inspired by their chart-topping duet “When I Said I Do,” which is the inspiration behind the Lifetime original movie When I Said I Do making its debut Saturday, May 23 at 8/7c.

“It’s the greatest compliment,” Lisa tells us of the movie and their song that’s long been a wedding/love story anthem for so many fans. After she gained worldwide fame on Knots Landing, Lisa first met Clint backstage in 1990 at a New Year’s Eve concert while in Houston promoting one of her TV movies. “A few weeks later, he was in L.A. doing The Tonight Show and he called me and we went to dinner at Gladstones in Malibu, a favorite place of mine, and we just connected, we hit it off. We had the same morals, the same values, the sort of stuff that really matters.”

Lifetime

They married a year later, and in 1999 Clint professed his love once again, writing “When I Said I Do” and insisting Lisa join him in recording it as a duet. The song topped the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart by the end of the year, and now over 25 years later continues to thrill as Lifetime’s latest collaboration involving music icons whose songs the network has adapted to screen.

“This song means so much, and we’ve told this many times — how he wrote this song, and he came to me and said, ‘You should sing on this,’” Lisa explains. “And I went, ‘That’s funny. I’m not going to do that.’ And he went, ‘No, you have to do this with me.’ And nobody else could do this. And I went, ‘Well, sorry.’ And we went round and round for however long, and then finally, I think he says it was like four days before he had to turn it in, I went, ‘OK, all right.’ Basically, I was chicken. I mean, I always wanted a music career and pursued that. I had four albums out and they were on major labels, so you’d think that I would’ve just been chomping at the bit. It just seemed enormous, and it became enormous. I mean, that’s just the crazy thing.”

Clint Black, Lisa Hartman Black, When I Said I Do

Lifetime

The song continues to be an enormous hit for the duo, and is the perfect inspiration for the feel-good love story Lifetime was looking to present.

“The movie, it’s so sweet. It’s such a beautiful story,” Lisa tells us. “When they pitched us, I was leaving getting Kleenex and they were laughing at me, in a sweet way, of course.”

Clint interrupts for a minute to give Lisa a kiss before he jumps on his tour bus for his next show. Quickly congratulating him on the movie and his new memoir, Killin’ Time: My Life and Music that was released on May 19, we asked if he too cried watching the clip. “No, I wasn’t crying, Lisa was,” he laughed, but the gravity of their song inspiring a movie wasn’t lost on him. “Hearing our song and those poignant moments has an effect on me, because this song means so much.”

Clint and Lisa make an appearance in the film as relationship podcasters who play a meaningful role in shaping the life of a couple (played by Sarah Drew and Eric Johnson) who are forced to confront grief and fear — and discover whether they have the courage to choose love again.

“What a beautiful ride,” Lisa concludes on the life of the song and their next story. And beautiful is exactly what we need.

When I Said I Do airs on Lifetime Saturday, May 23 at 8/7c.