In a revealing podcast appearance this week, actor John Schneider spoke about his new girlfriend, implying he would be dead if he hadn’t met her.
On the May 29 episode of “Grace Begins: The Podcast,” the “Dukes of Hazzard” and “October Baby” actor opened up about love and faith. Schneider, 64, told hosts Cathy Cardenas and Catherine Sutherland that he wasn’t looking for a new relationship—and honestly “didn’t want it,” following the February 2023 death of wife Alicia Allain. But then God intervened.
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“God sent a widower to a widow and a widow to a widower who [gets] it, who understands,” Schneider said. “Because I tell you what, I was ready to give it up, all of it—everything.” While gesturing to his new girlfriend, who wasn’t shown or named, he added, “Then just when I thought the very notion of dating or holding another hand was repulsive, I met this one, that crazy dame over there.”
Before meeting his new love interest, “I was done,” an emotional Schneider added. “And if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been here, there’s not a chance in the world.”
John Schneider on Grief and Love
John Schneider, who’s also a country singer, has been outspoken about the toll of grief. Last July, he shared that he writes a daily “letter to heaven” to Allain, whom he nicknamed “Smile.”
“There is nothing to prepare you for it,” he said of widowhood.
Last August, the actor told People magazine he was trying to “get to the point where I look around and see where she is, not where she’s not.” Schneider added that he both loves and misses his wife “more every minute.”
“And that’s the personality of grief,” he said. “I want this pain to go away, but I don’t want it diminish her in any way. I want to laugh, and when I do, I feel bad. I want to smile and mean it, but I don’t.”
Schneider and Allain were married in 2019, several months after she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Although she experienced a brief remission, the cancer soon metastasized to her bones.
