Weekend Plans is Upstream’s exclusive lifestyle feature where we highlight the real off-duty routines of the most exciting people in culture.
This weekend, 27-year-old country singer and political commentator Alexis Wilkins stops by Daily Wire HQ to talk about splitting time between Nashville and D.C., her strategy for flying above the fray, and why dating FBI Director Kash Patel might be the most normal (and perfectly aligned) chapter of her story.
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Alexis Wilkins arrives wearing a relaxed button-down and silver jewelry, offset by her dark hair, which she tucks behind her ear. Her security detail follows as she offers me a warm smile and a big hug. I’ll bet you $1,000 no one would ever peg her as an NRA board member. “Hiiiii!” she trills. I immediately get why those who know her love her.
I’m not going to be that girl who asks when Kash is finally gonna put a ring on it (yet), or whether the relentless stream of rage-bait headlines and credible death threats freaks her out. Instead, I go with, “How does it feel to be hot enough that people think you’re a spy?”
Alexis laughs. “I don’t think it’s ever been framed that way, and I love it.”
She grew up Orthodox Christian, mostly in Arkansas, raised by her Armenian mother who was a financial consultant and her father who was top brass at Gillette.
Still, some allege she’s a “Mossad honeypot.” Alexis essentially rolls her eyes. “My poor mom’s digging in our basement for my baptism certificate, like, ‘Wait, but this doesn’t make any sense.’ I’m like, ‘Mom, they don’t do common sense.’”
“If I wasn’t doing a good job, nobody would attack me,” she adds. “So I will continue to do my work.”
Alexis doesn’t come off as anything close to a flash-in-the-pan opportunist. Hey, New York Times, she built a career of her own long before Kash.
Alexis wrote her first song when she was seven years old and recorded it in Nashville at the ripe old age of nine. “I started writing when I was really young because I read an article in a Smithsonian magazine about coal fires in Pennsylvania,” she says. (Wait, she was reading Smithsonian at seven?) “It was just one of those ‘bored is not allowed’ things,” Alexis confirms.
“I asked my mom if we could donate all of our money, and she was like, ‘No, that’s not how that works.’” Instead, her mother suggested she use her talents to fundraise for the cause. “I went on my American Girl doll tape recorder, and I recorded a song. And I’m like, I’m gonna put it on the new iTunes thing that’s out, and we’re gonna raise money with this song.”
She later took on Christ-focused Belmont University when an activist professor gave her an F in comparative politics because he didn’t jive with her conservative values. His mistake was messing with a straight-A student who doesn’t take kindly to being silenced.
She also describes leaving the American flag icon on her social media and continuing to work with veterans despite pressure from the music industry to tame her patriotism. Pointing to her parents and a close circle of friends, Alexis says, “My support system is really great. That’s why I started speaking up.”
About her music, tracks like “Grit” and “Country Back” are as fire as her favorite Sig Sauer P365-Rose and as country as cowboy boots. Luckily, Alexis is still following her gut and staying true to herself.
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The rare off-duty day
Alexis hits the stage most weekends, but on the occasion that she’s in D.C. with a little downtime, she says she and Kash prefer “no plans” plans. “We just hang out, honestly,” she says. The U.S Intelligence life involves constantly being on-call, but the couple unplugs when they can. “We settle into the house, see people, cook, ask, ‘What do you want to do today?’ Things that we don’t always have the luxury of doing. It’s such a blessing.”
Back in Nashville, a free schedule features the same emphasis on living in the moment with the people she cares about most. “I would go to breakfast with my mom, and go antiquing or something … find an estate sale. I just love old things.”
A curated place to call home
Architectural Digest’s “Open Door” home tour series is missing out on a brilliant gem. Alexis describes the interior of her Nashville home as “old Roy Rogers,” AKA the cowboy decor of any Western fan’s dreams, which her mom helped her DIY.
Part of the vintage curioscape involves a mid-century RCA turn-dial TV they rigged to stream nonstop Westerns, and a gorgeous bannister they built from salvaged wood and rugged rebar. “I collect old books,” she explains of her museum library-like collection of secondhand treasures. “I am literate, contrary to popular reporting.”
But once she utters, “I have a taxidermy squirrel that has a cowboy hat and a holster,” I’m sold. As for music? “I listen to Gene Autry, like very, very, very old Western country. It’s a theme in my house.”
Rejuvenating in the midst of chaos
For Alexis, the biggest difference between her public and private life is the way she’s portrayed in the headlines. “People would be surprised that I’m just not very serious,” she says. “I’m just kind of a normal person … God forbid.”
She can often be found reading over policies, researching, and even teaching herself to code, so zoning out with a little beauty routine is her favorite way to unwind: “sitting in front of my red light, on my PEMF [pulsed electromagnetic field] mat on the grounding setting, watching reality TV.” When we talked, she had just finished part one of the “Summer House” reunion.
Also a fan of Pilates, light strength training, and a peaceful walk outdoors, she wants to form a regular hobby that doesn’t involve a screen. Still, we’re both low-key looking forward to “Love Is Blind” Season 11 this fall.
Cooking up a family connection
Keeping it simple in the kitchen, Alexis preps basics like chicken cutlets and Goodles mac and cheese for herself. “I am such a boring eater,” she jokes. “I’m making chicken Caesar wraps all the time.” But when Kash hits the jackpot during hunting season, she says, “We have a lot of wild game to work with. I’ve been cooking stuffed peppers with elk recently.”
Always down to learn something new, she also enjoys discovering a few tricks of the trade from the Gujarati Indian side of the family. “[Kash’s] mom teaches me how to cook,” she says, noting how the same dish might be seasoned differently depending on a family’s preference. “I’m in the kitchen with her, I’m asking her questions, I’m taking pictures of how much spice she uses. It’s such a fun privilege to get to learn these things.”
Photo by Jason Kempin/Getty Images
A casual meet-cute
Alexis and Kash met at a Truth Social party at country singer John Rich’s house, where Kash tried to hit on her by complimenting her jacket. But first things first, what the heck was that jacket?
“You’re the first person to ask me that,” she smiles. “Fun fact. It’s actually a men’s jacket: the Filson Mackinaw wool plaid jacket, black and red.” She later bought one for Kash as an inside joke. Alexis proudly maintains “boring,” “straight-laced” professional boundaries, so it took a minute before she accepted an invitation to dinner at E3 Chophouse in Nashville with the then-adviser to Donald Trump. But this serendipitous connection almost didn’t happen.
“I wasn’t gonna go to that party because I had lost my dog like 10 days before,” she recalls. Deep in grief over her 16-year-old Bichon Frise, Bizou, Alexis reluctantly took her mom’s advice … sort of. “My mom literally kicked me out. She was like, ‘You have to get out of the house.’ I was like, I’m just wearing jeans. The joke is I wasn’t dressed up.”
Kash has spoken publicly about an imminent proposal, but the dedicated couple remains intentional as they navigate uncharted territory. “We had no idea, obviously, what challenges lay in store for us,” Alexis says. “But everything is an adventure. I’m so proud of him.”
Advice for the next generation
Alexis offers front-line wisdom for those just beginning to find their voice. “I think that being who you are does turn into a superpower,” she says. Stepping out confident in your values requires some guts, but she confirms, “It’s the same thing as someone saying you have to go to these parties in high school and do drugs to be cool. We all look at that like, ‘Oh, that’s peer pressure.’ You don’t have to be in rooms that you don’t want to be in.”
This high-value apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree. She says her grandpa — a first-generation Armenian who worked in an ice cream factory, sold newspapers, shined shoes at age five, and went on to become an aerospace engineer — often quoted historian Thomas Babington Macaulay: “The measure of a man’s real character is what he would do if he knew he would never be found out.”
“My mom always said don’t settle,” she adds.
I tell her to waitlist me for a “Mossad honeypot” tee if she ever launches a line of satirical merch. But before we part ways, I invite her to share what most often occupies her thoughts.
“Am I making a good impact, and am I showing up for my friends and family, and am I being myself in all of this noise?” she says. “Is God proud of me? Is my mom proud of me? Okay, cool.”
