Toby Keith, the larger-than-life country superstar who cemented his reputation with pro-America anthems and beer-drinking singalongs, has died of stomach cancer. He was 62.

Keith’s death was confirmed by a statement on his website. His longtime publicist Elaine Schock said he died peacefully in Oklahoma, where he lived his entire life, surrounded by his family. Keith had announced his stomach cancer diagnosis back in 2022 and played his last show on December 14th, 2023 in Las Vegas as part of a three-night run.

“Cancer is a roller coaster,” he told Oklahoma City TV station KWTV in an interview that aired less than two weeks ago. “You just sit here and wait on it to go away—it may not ever go away.”

Known for his string of American anthems written in the aftermath of 9/11, like “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)”, Keith built a lasting legacy on songs that highlighted his patriotism and commitment to his ideals. This often made him a lightning rod for controversy, while also enshrining him as a pillar of the pop-country establishment. Beyond his war-hawk cries, however, Keith also cultivated a following for the plain-spoken humor that endeared him to the public for 30 years through his drinking songs like “I Love This Bar”, “Red Solo Cup”, and “Beer For My Horses” with Willie Nelson.

Throughout his career, Keith notched 60 singles on the country charts, including 20 Number 1 hits, and sold more than 40 million albums worldwide. In 2015 he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and in 2021 he received the National Medal of the Arts from President Donald Trump—for whom Keith had played a private party. He also performed at events for previous presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Born Toby Keith Covel in Clinton, OK on July 8th, 1961, the singer-songwriter lived many lives before finding his path to fame. Straight out of high school, he found work in the booming oil fields, making $50,000 a year at 18 years old. Keith’s job soon dried up along with the domestic oil industry as well as his money—teaching him an invaluable lesson in saving his money that served him well throughout his fame. The imposing 6-foot-4 Keith floated around through other roughneck jobs like being a rodeo hand and even played a couple seasons of minor league football for the Oklahoma City Drillers, a farm team for the now-defunct United States Football League. Perhaps not ironically, his first hit was the song “Should’ve Been A Cowboy” which, at over three million plays on the radio, became the most-played country song of the 1990s.

As he drifted through various callous-hand industries, his only consistent work came with playing alongside his band in the roadhouse circuit of Oklahoma and Texas. This path eventually led him to Nashville where he caught the attention of Mercury Records, with whom he released his platinum self-titled debut in 1993, featuring the hit “Should’ve Been A Cowboy”.

Though he found success early with his debut, Keith felt his label neglected him and other artists in favor of Shania Twain. He moved to Dreamworks Records in 1999, shortly before “How Do You Like Me Now?!” became his first crossover hit and took him out of the country niche and into the mainstream.

Following the September 11th terrorist attacks, Keith’s voice was one of the loudest and most dominant in giving pop country music a nationalist bent that would define, and some may argue scar, the genre through the rest of the decade. His 2002 song  “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)”, though a country staple at the time, was even pulled from an ABC Fourth of July broadcast for being too angry. Outlaw country icon Steve Earle accused the song of “pandering to people’s worst instincts at a time they are hurt and scared.”

Keith didn’t shy away from controversy in the early 2000s, famously feuding with the band then known as The Dixie Chicks (now known as The Chicks) after singer Natalie Maines told a London crowd that they were ashamed to be from the same state as then-U.S. President George W. Bush and that they did not support the Iraq War. The Chicks were one of the most popular groups in country music at the time with sizable mainstream crossover appeal, but their career never fully recovered from the fallout of the incident—partially egged on by Keith, who would display a doctored photo of Maines with Iraq President Saddam Hussein at his concerts.

Maines, as outspoken and steadfast in her convictions as Keith, responded by wearing a shirt that said “FUTK” at the ACM Awards in 2003, interpreted by many as a message to Toby Keith. Keith had walked out of the ceremony earlier in the evening after he got snubbed in several categories, ultimately causing him to miss his win for Entertainer of the Year. He returned in 2004 and won the award for the second year in a row.

“It got pretty vicious sometimes,” he told CMT.com of the feud with Maines in 2003. “I’m embarrassed about the way I let myself get sucked into all that.”

But Keith’s patriotism wasn’t a marketing gimmick. Beginning in 2002, he went on 11 USO tours and played hundreds of shows for active military deployed around the world. Over the years he joined various campaigns, made PSAs, and raised and donated funds for organizations like the Wounded Warrior Project and the Independence Fund. In 2022 he played a benefit for Vietnam Veterans weeks before announcing his stomach cancer diagnosis.

“Everybody should have their own thing, and if he don’t want to be a role model, that should be up to him,” Keith once said of his outspokenness. “In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I’m still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.”