Walker Hayes' 7 Kids: All About His Sons and Daughters

Walker Hayes may love a Bourbon Street steak with an Oreo shake, but his love knows no bounds for his wife Laney and their seven children: Lela, Chapel, Baylor, Beckett, Loxley, Everly and Oakleigh.

A year after they married, the high school sweethearts welcomed their first child together in 2005. Then came Lela’s brothers: Chapel, Baylor and Beckett. Speaking to PEOPLE, Walker admitted that he and Laney had always planned to have four children, “but we just kept going.” In 2013, they had baby number five, Loxley, who was promoted to big sister in 2015 with the addition of Everly.

In 2018, the couple’s seventh child, Oakleigh, died at birth as a result of a ruptured uterus. The “Don’t Let Her” singer shared that his family was grieving and paying tribute to Oakleigh in their own way. Although the country music star is known for his autobiographical songwriting, his song for Oakleigh “will come one day, but only when it needs to.”

“I’m definitely going to sit down when the real thing comes out that I think even comes close to doing my daughter justice, and she’s beautiful enough to share with the world about her and this experience,” he told PEOPLE.

Instagram of Walker Hayes

The Hayes family’s darkest moment was followed by the family’s greatest blessing: Walker and Lela’s viral TikTok dance “Fancy Like.” Overnight, the father-daughter duo became the face of the TikTok dance challenge, catapulting Walker’s career to newfound stardom. The Hayes clan has gone from making funny social media posts to starring in Applebee’s commercials.

Soon after, Walker learned he would be headlining his own tour — with Laney and their six children in tow. Walker was fully aware of the public perception that his family of eight lived in a tour bus, but for him it was a dream come true. “We are a unit,” he told PEOPLE. “We rely on each other. We’ll be together as long as we can.”

Since then, Walker and his children have become famous for the creative “trick shot” videos they share on his Instagram. Every day, he shares a video of one or more of his kids performing their trick using various objects such as water bottles, pancakes or pencils, and in the background you can usually hear everyone cheering when they pull it off successfully.

Here’s everything you need to know about Walker Hayes’ seven children.

Lela Hayes, 18

Instagram of Walker Hayes

Walker’s oldest child, daughter Lela, was born on December 22, 2005.

After her and Walker’s viral “Fancy Like” dance on TikTok in 2021, she naturally took on the role of her father’s dance choreographer and social media manager.

“We just threw it together. My job was to make it easy enough for old people. And it didn’t take long. I mean, we probably put it together in 30 minutes. We made it twice and just threw it up,” Walker told PEOPLE. the viral dance challenge TikTok was born. The father-daughter duo also choreographed dances to Walker’s “Y’all Life,” “Country Stuff” and “U Gurl,” as well as Ed Sheeran’s “Shivers” and FloRide’s “High Heels.”

Although Lela isn’t on social media herself, her parents often document her big moments — including her prom invitation — on Walker’s Instagram. “My social media is not run by record labels and rarely curated,” Walker told PEOPLE.

At the age of 16, Lela joined her father and family on tour. While Walker admitted to PEOPLE that he was worried about how Lela would react to being away from her friends and the high school experiences she inevitably misses out on, the teenager was happy to be with her family.

“Lela says, ‘I can’t believe this is our life, I can’t believe we can do this,'” he said. “And I agree. I can’t believe it either.”

During a visit to The Bobby Bones Show In 2019, Laney praised Lela for being a second mom to her younger siblings. “She is more capable of running a household than I am,” she said.

Hayes Chapel, 16

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Walker and Laney welcomed their second child, son Chapel, on August 17, 2007. Although Chapel doesn’t appear often on his father’s social media, he does have a song named after him on Walker’s 2018 album. 8 tracks, Vol: 3 Black Sheep.

Titled “Chapel,” Walker opens up about raising a son whose “dreams might be different” than the goals he dreamed for him as a baby. He sings, “Maybe you won’t be an athlete/ Maybe you don’t like sports/ And you want to be a mathematician/ And if that’s the case/ I won’t treat you like a black sheep/ I don’t care if you never win a track meet.”

Of the Hayes’ group, Chapel is one of the “shy ones,” Walker previously told PEOPLE. The country artist said he was happily surprised when Chapel, along with younger brother Beckett, joined the family on stage for a dance performance on his “Fancy Like” tour.

Laney and I get teary-eyed talking about it, Walker said. “I mean, they both got on stage and danced, which is uncharacteristic of them. It was a great moment to see my shy self just having fun in front of all these people and relaxing.”

“I love each and every one of these kids,” he told PEOPLE in 2017. “They’re all so beautiful and amazing, and watching them grow up is the best thing in the world.”

Instagram of Walker Hayes

In August 2023, Walker marked Chapel’s 16th birthday by posting a video on his Instagram Story. In the video, the Hayes family chanted “Chapel’s sixteen” around the teenager.

Baylor Hayes, 15

Instagram of Walker Hayes

Like his older sister, Baylor enjoyed having a hands-on role in his father’s music career. He was born on July 7, 2009 and is an assistant in Walker’s merch team. Baylor worked in the merch booth on his father’s “Fancy Like” tour, where he chatted with fans before shows — an experience he claimed was better than “being at home.”

“I got emotional just talking to him at the end of the night. He was so excited. He was learning how to serve people and how to work with them. He just loved it,” Walker recalled. “He told me, ‘Dad, this is so much better than being at home.'” At home, Walker often refers to Baylor as “Bay Bay.”

In another interview with PEOPLE, Walker shared that his greatest joy is writing music about the memories he made with his family. “If I wake up and I have six kids that are alive, and they’re walking down the stairs, and my wife is alive, and she comes down the stairs, and we’re together, and we’ve got a roof over our heads, and I’m writing a song — man, that’s about as good as life gets there,” he said.

Beckett Hayes, 12

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The couple welcomed their fourth child together, son Beckett, on August 31, 2011. Of all her children, Beckett’s arrival was “the craziest,” Laney revealed on The Bobby Bones Show.

“It was an unintended natural birth,” she said, adding that she almost gave birth to Beckett in the car on the way to the hospital. “We had other kids with us because there was no other choice. It was like, ‘Everybody in the car! We have to go!’ ”

“We just left [the children] at the front desk,” Walker added. The couple said the nurse was kind enough to paint with Lela, Chapel, and Baylor in the waiting room. Becket arrived within minutes, Lela continued, “It was going down the hall—quickly to the hospital. ”

He was also the muse behind “Beckett” from Walker’s 2017 record. boom. The proud dad sings about his then-four-year-old son’s favorite things, from munching on “fat Froot Loops” to “taking advantage of the bathtub’s acoustics.”

Loxley Hayes, 11

Instagram of Walker Hayes

Loxley, or “Lolly” as her family calls her, was born on August 7, 2013 and is already following in her father’s musical footsteps.

At the age of 9, she made her professional singing debut on her father’s new single “if father time had a daughter”, the music video of which is a “dad-daughter” compilation of home videos made by Walker, Lela, Loxley and Everly. Loxley can be heard harmonizing with her dad in the background.

Their father-daughter relationship is rooted in music. In 2019, Walker released a song titled “I Hope You Miss Me” in tribute to Loxley and her musical aspirations. “For me, the sounds of this song and the lyrics emotionally embody something my daughter, Loxley, once told me when she was 4 — ‘Dad, you can hold me, but you can’t hold me forever — that’s what I hope ‘I Hope You Miss Me ‘ is what it feels like,” Walker told Sounds Like Nashville.

Loxley also likes to occasionally steal the microphone from his dad during warm-ups at concerts.

Everly Hayes, 7

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Walker and Laney welcomed their sixth child together, daughter Everly, on August 27, 2015.

During her dad’s “Fancy Like” tour, Everly wasted no time getting to know each concert hall like the back of her hand. Walker told PEOPLE that it was exciting for him and Laney to see Everly “have some freedom” after living in such tight corners on the road.

“They love it — figuring out where the bathroom is, where the green room is. And ‘Here’s the food, Dad, and I’m going to get something to eat.’ The little ones are so cute, like little ones,” Walker said.

Everly, her siblings, and Laney can often be seen jumping on stage at their father’s live shows. The privilege of being able to glance and see seven familiar faces in a sea of ​​thousands was not lost on Walker during his “Fancy Like” tour. “I never have to say goodbye to my wife and children,” he said at the time. “I literally hug them before I go on stage, I hug them when I get off.”

Oakleigh Clover Hayes

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In June 2018, Walker announced that their seventh child, a daughter named Oakleigh Klover, had died days before her hospital appointment. Two months later, in August, the couple shared with PEOPLE that Oakleigh’s death was the result of a ruptured uterus.

“‘What to do?’ ” Hayes recalled that tragic day to PEOPLE. “‘When Laney wakes up, how do I tell her? How do I explain, she’s a girl, but you know, she died?’ I knew it would break Laney.”

Before he could realize the death of his newborn, a nurse relayed that Laney’s life was also in critical condition. “I was really just hoping that this wasn’t going to be the worst day of my life, even though in some ways it already was,” he said.

“Oakleigh was in my abdominal cavity and that was all the pressure. But we didn’t know that at the time, obviously,” Laney explained. “I remember going to sleep hoping the baby was okay. I had no idea I was in danger… I remember feeling like I didn’t think everything was going to be okay, but I still had hope.”

After a two-hour operation and massive blood transfusions, Walker was able to comfort Laney and tell her about Oakleigh. The couple, along with their eldest child, spent the rest of the day with Oakleigh’s body. “Watching Walker hold her, you felt like she was just about to wake up. You were thinking, oh, please, just let her start breathing… She was swaddled and just looked like a newborn,” Laney said.

In honor of Oakleigh, Walker tattooed his late daughter’s first and middle name, as well as her footprint, on his inner left forearm. “He always wanted to get a tattoo, but nothing seemed important enough,” Laney explained. “This was the first time something really mattered enough.”

Their six children have found their own ways to mark Oakleigh. Everyone was coloring the stones to decorate Oakleigh’s grave. Lela wrote a rap about her younger sister, while Chapel built a virtual memorial for her in his video game. Everly and Loxley also like to remind their family that Oakleigh is “with Jesus” now.

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Source: HIS Education