The longtime lead guitarist for country music stars Rascal Flatts, Joe Don Rooney, was arrested for DUI outside of Nashville on Thursday.
Williamson County Sheriff’s department reps told Fox News that a deputy responded to a motor vehicle crash around 4 a.m. local time on Sept. 9. Rooney, who had rammed his car into a tree line, was booked into the Williamson County Jail and later released after posting a $2,500 bond. He was reportedly uninjured in the crash.
The group’s rep had no comment for Fox News.
Rooney, 45, founded Rascal Flatts in 1999, along with Gary LeVox and Jay DeMarcus, who are second cousins. In January 2020, the group announced they would be disbanding after 21 years together and embarking on a farewell tour, which was indefinitely postponed in May of that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rooney’s first band was called Unclethumbtack, which is a detail Page Six feels it cannot in good conscience leave out. Rascal Flatts’ 2000 debut single, “Prayin’ for Daylight,” hit No. 3 on the Billboard country charts and the group has been pop-country royalty since.
In 2006, Rooney married former Miss Georgia — and Miss USA 2001 runner-up, and Playboy’s 2005 Playmate of the Year — Tiffany Fallon.
Rooney first laid eyes on Fallon in Toby Keith’s “Who’s Your Daddy” video, according to country music site The Boot. “Jay called me one night in April 2003 and said [DeMarcus’ now-wife] Allison and Tiffany were in town,” the musician adds. “I was like, ‘Yeah! I’d love to meet her!’”
They have three children: son Jagger Donovan Rooney (born May 31, 2008) and daughters Raquel Blue Rooney (born September 7, 2010) and Devon Olivia Rooney (born September 25, 2014).