Joey Martin Feek of country duo Joey + Rory dies
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Lisa Respers France, CNN Newswire
(CNN) — Joey Martin Feek, one half of the country duo Joey + Rory, died Friday after a battle with cervical cancer, her husband announced on Facebook. She was 40 years old.
“My wife’s greatest dream came true today,” Rory Feek wrote. “She is in heaven.”
Martin Feek and her husband were discovered in 2008 after they competed on CMT’s music competition show “Can You Duet.” Their first single, “Cheater, Cheater,” had a popular video with a cameo by Naomi Judd, a judge on “Can You Duet.”
Fans fell in love thanks to their talent and to an audition video that showed the couple’s devotion to each other. In it, they shared the story of their meeting at a songwriting event in 2002 and the restaurant, Mary Jo’s, that Martin Feek opened with her sister-in-law near their home in Columbia, Tennessee.
The couple and their restaurant were also featured in Overstock.com commercials, bringing further exposure. Joey + Rory went on to release six studio albums.
The couple shared Martin Feek’s diagnosis of cancer in 2014, soon after the birth of their daughter, Indiana, who has Down syndrome.
Despite intensive treatment and surgery, the cancer spread to her colon, and in November, the devout couple asked fans to pray for her healing and “God’s will.” The next day, Feek posted that his wife’s tumors had continued to grow and said doctors told them that “we need to concentrate now on helping her be comfortable.”
“Not the answer we hoped for,” he wrote on their blog. “But the answer He has given us.”
His wife, he said, was handling the situation with grace.
“Joey is at peace with where she is and where she’s going,” he wrote. “So am I. An answer to prayer.”
In addition to her husband and daughter, Martin Feek is survived by her husband’s two daughters from an earlier relationship, her parents and three sisters.