The Chicks approached their new album, Gaslighter, with a journalistic level of specificity when it comes to their divorces. So specific, in fact, that they couldn’t talk much about the music before it came out, and Natalie Maines even had to change some details to adhere to a nondisclosure agreement she signed. Between mentions of calls from husbands’ girlfriends’ husbands and taxes a certain ex can’t pay, there’s one perfect recurring motif on Gaslighter: Maines’s boat. When she sang, “I know exactly what you did on my boat†on “Gaslighter,†she had our full attention — so when we heard about that boat again later in the album, on “Tights on My Boat,†we just had to know more. Only Maines herself may know exactly what happened on her boat, but here’s what we’ve been able to find out.
What boat?
When the song “Gaslighter†first came out, some fans and reporters found information about a boat owned by actor Adrian Pasdar, Maines’s ex-husband. Pasdar bought a 42-foot sailboat during his success on the NBC drama Heroes and named it … The Nautalee (you can guess after whom). Back in 2007, according to the Gainesville Sun, Pasdar had big dreams of sailing across the Atlantic and was working on getting Maines onboard. He was “waiting until my wife realizes we’re not all going to perish in a hurricane,†he told the paper, adding that “she knows it’s important to me, so she supports it. Silently.†Here are some photos of Pasdar on that boat in 2007.
So it’s not Maines’s boat?
First off, we don’t even know if that’s the titular boat of “Tights on My Boat.†Maybe Maines eventually overcame her fear of the sea and bought her own boat, like any Texas girl with a lot of money! But if that was the Maines-Pasdar household’s only boat, it sounds like Ms. Natalie Maines would have no problem calling it hers. After Pasdar tried to void their prenup during his messy divorce proceedings in December 2018 with Maines, he requested $60,000 a month for spousal support and child support for their two sons. According to the Blast, which acquired their divorce records, Pasdar claimed Maines’s income paid for their California home, a separate vacation home, and other expenses. A 42-foot sailboat, perhaps? They ended up dividing their finances in a private settlement this past October, the Blast reported, so it’s unclear who walked away with the boat. But we know who was footing the bill.
And what about those tights?
“Tights on My Boat†is the most direct callout on an album full of them: “You can tell the girl who left her tights on my boat that she can have you now,†Maines sings in the chorus. But she recently told her idol Howard Stern that she may have taken some liberties on that story. “I didn’t say there wasn’t a boat involved; I’m saying there weren’t tights,†Maines said. Maybe “Bra on My Boat†didn’t have the same ring to it? “I wonder if they’ll play this conversation in court,†she later joked. Maybe then we’d learn the true story behind that fateful boat.