“American Idol” Season 5 runner-up Katharine McPhee is no stranger to touring and performing with her husband, the famed record producer David Foster. They’ve played multiple shows over the years, and, with a professional relationship that goes back two decades, are very comfortable with each other.
But even the most stable marriages can be challenging when you’re spending 24 hours a day with each other. However, for McPhee, the struggle isn’t about whether she and Foster are getting under each other’s skin, but if they’re both getting enough sleep and time to decompress.
Inside The Foster-McPhee Tour Life: Jokes, Jabs, and Jet Lag
In an interview with Page Six, McPhee joked that she and Foster “Do OK, we don’t kill each other.” The couple recently finished a 12-date Christmas tour, with their final show ending in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, on December 14. On January 30, they begin their next “An Intimate Evening with David Foster & Katharine McPhee” tour, which will span 19 dates.
McPhee says that the real challenge with touring with her husband is the shuttling between their tour bus and hotel rooms. “The hard part of the tour is actually just like not sleeping very well,” she said.
Despite not feeling totally rested, she loves touring with Foster. “The joy is when we’re on stage poking fun at each other and getting to see how that night goes, and then getting on the bus to do the next city,” she admitted.
McPhee Credits Long-Standing Friendship for Strong Bond with David Foster
McPhee first met her husband, the 16-time Grammy Award-winning Foster, in 2006. The then 21-year-old was competing on “American Idol,” where a 56-year-old Foster served as her mentor. At the time, Foster had just divorced his third wife, Linda Thompson, and McPhee was still two years away from marrying her boyfriend, Nick Cokas.
GettyHowever, the “Smash” star and Foster connected professionally and became friends; he produced her first single and performed at her wedding to Cokas. They also performed together during Foster’s PBS special, “Hit Man: David Foster & Friends.”
McPhee felt that their close bond came “from the way that we met,” and that they were “friends for a long time” before dating, which strengthened their connection.
“That’s where the bond comes from, I think, more than anything,” she said. “It just makes it convenient that I can sing for him when he needs a demo done or something like that.”
“It was a workplace [thing],” she said, “and neither of us were looking at each other that way at all.” She noted that, after their friendship became romantic in 2017, “it surprised both of us.”
