Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus and Family Invite Fans into Their Home on ‘DeMarcus Family Rules’
'DeMarcus Family Rules' is streaming on Netflix now!
For those who have wondered how Rascal Flatts’ Jay DeMarcus and his wife Allison have juggled busy careers, philanthropy, parenting and marriage, they can now watch it all unfold on DeMarcus Family Rules, a new reality show airing on Netflix. The unscripted series spotlights the hectic homelife DeMarcus shares with Allison and their two children Madeline, 9, and Dylan, 8.
“It was not my idea at all,” DeMarcus tells Sounds Like Nashville. “In fact, we’ve been approached several other times before about doing the show and I’d always declined, but this was the work of Mr. Todd Chrisley. He put us on his show a few times and we had a whole lot of fun doing it. He took us out to dinner one night and said, ‘I think there’s a show with you guys. You guys are some of the funniest people I’ve ever met and your kids are so cute and funny and unpredictable. You’ve got a crazy family like ours and I think that somebody would really, really see themselves in the show that we could do for you. And I promise I will protect the brand that you’ve worked to build with Rascal Flatts.’”
Chrisley, who is an executive producer on DeMarcus Family Rules, was very convincing on why he thought the show could be a hit, and he made it clear he respected DeMarcus’ history with Rascal Flatts. “It was really important to me to protect the hard work that my partners and I have put into building Rascal Flatts into what it is,” DeMarcus says, “so we had a really, really fun time doing the show and I’m really proud of what we put together.”
The family started filming the new show last October and finished the first six episodes in December. “It was pre-COVID and that’s why nobody is wearing masks. We really shot it at a time where everybody was so busy and going 100 different directions, but it was really fun because it forced us to focus on our family and family time, and then whew, we sure got a big dose of it come March,” Allison says of the family staying home during the pandemic. “It is a tough change for everybody. Jay doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s used to living on a bus at least half of his life.”
Allison thinks fans will be interested in seeing what Jay’s life is like away from his career with Rascal Flatts. The show also spotlights their differences as a couple with Allison being the more structured partner and Jay the wildcard. “The people who watch who are Jay’s fans, they just know the music side of him, not necessarily the family side,” she says. “They’ll enjoy watching him be a dad because he’s always the fun dad who comes home and takes everybody to get ice cream and milk shakes at 9 o’clock at night, and wants to go for a night swim because he’s on tour hours. He wants to do those things at 9 p.m. when the kids should be going to bed. We go through all the exact same struggles that other parents and married couples go through and we deal with real life situations.”
Allison is a national television personality and has won multiple beauty pageants. She was a host and correspondent on Country Music Television for ten years, and she is the only woman in pageant history to represent the state of Tennessee at the Miss Teen USA, Miss America and Miss USA pageants.
Earlier this year she established the Miss Volunteer America Pageant. A noted philanthropist, she was the President of the Board of Directors of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital for the past four years and continues to serve on the Board, while also a current Board Member for the Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center’s Board of Overseers and the Grants Committee of The Memorial Foundation.
Jay is excited about people getting to know more about his accomplished spouse. “People are going to really, really love seeing what a powerful, empowered woman Allison is. How much she juggles while I’m not here is mind boggling,” DeMarcus says. “Between being a mother, being a daughter to her mom—who is getting older now and she has to do more for her like we all do when our folks get into their later years—I think people will be amazed by how much she keeps going. She keeps the home fires burnin.’ She really is going to be a shining light to young women out there who have some example to look toward once they get married and have families of their own.”
The kids enjoyed filming the show, especially Dylan. “They’ve been on ‘Chrisley Knows Best’ a few times, so they were no stranger to the cameras or being mic’d up or anything, but Dylan just expected that that’s the way things went—you go on the Chrisley’s show a few times and everybody gets their own show. He was ready. One thing about my son is there is no denying that he is my son because he definitely loves to make people laugh and loves to entertain people. He’s wildly funny and unpredictable and his sense of comedic timing even at eight-years-old is uncanny. Madeline, she just does her best to keep up with him. He takes up a lot of space, but she does a great job holding her own. She’s sweet and precious and funny too.”
“There’s obviously hesitation anytime you are involving your children in anything but we were able to rely on the Chrisleys and their experiences,” Allison says. “Obviously, they have raised incredible children who are fine young people and they’ve grown up in front of the camera. I had faith in that part of it because of their involvement. Todd’s all about family. He has a family show, so we knew that that would be his approach.”
So did Chrisley give them any advice as they entered the reality TV show arena? “He did,” Jay responds. “The main thing was to ignore the cameras because if you are worried about the cameras being there and what they are shooting and where everybody is, it’s going to come across and you won’t react naturally like you normally would in any given situation that you are in. It took a week or so to find our stride and to kind of get into a groove, but we were able to get over that hump and forget that the cameras and crew were there and sort of settle in to just being ourselves and be who we normally would.”
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In the first six episodes, viewers will see the DeMarcus family celebrate Thanksgiving last year. There are also episodes spotlighting Madeline’s birthday, Jay’s celebrity golf tournament for charity, and a family camping trip. “It’s my sister and Jay trying to convince me to go camping, but I had to call them out because neither one of them have been camping,” Allison says with a laugh.
In addition to doing promotion for the new show, Allison and Jay have been busy with other projects. Jay is in the studio producing a new album on Grammy winner Jason Crabb, who is signed to Red Street Records, a Christian record label DeMarcus launched in 2018. Allison is working on Miss Volunteer America Pageant.
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No matter what is happening in their hectic professional lives, family always takes priority. “It’s been really fun. We’ve been spending a lot of time together as a family and it’s been great for me because I’ve never had this much time off before,” DeMarcus says. “I’ve really enjoyed being at the house with them and watching them grow and being around them and hearing all the sweet little cute funny things that they do that I know I’ve missed out on for so many years.
“We’ve just been being together as a family probably like thousands of other people, but it’s been uniquely fun for me because I’ve never been able to do that before. It has been a blessing, but I’m ready to go make some money now because I’m running out,” he jokes.
When asked if he had learned anything about himself by seeing his life played out on their new reality show, DeMarcus responds with a sly laugh, “I’ve learned that I am as funny as I thought I was.”
