ALAN JACKSON’S EMOTIONAL STORY ABOUT HIS LATE SON-IN-LAW BEN SELEKMAN
Few tragedies have affected Alan Jackson as deeply as the sudden loss of his son-in-law, Ben Selekman.
Ben married Alan’s oldest daughter, Mattie Jackson Selecman, in October 2017. Their future together seemed bright. But less than a year later, tragedy struck.
On September 12, 2018, Ben suffered a fatal traumatic brain injury after falling while helping a woman board a boat in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was only 28 years old.
The unexpected loss devastated the entire Jackson family.
Years later, Alan revealed one memory of Ben that has remained especially close to his heart.
That memory revolves around a song called “You’ll Always Be My Baby.”
The song was originally written after Mattie asked her father to create a special father-daughter dance song for her wedding. Alan agreed and wrote a heartfelt ballad celebrating the bond between a father and his daughter.
As he later joked, he told his three daughters:
“I’m writing one song. All three of you can use it.”
But it wasn’t his daughters’ reaction that stayed with him most.
It was Ben’s.
Alan recalled taking an early demo of the song out to his truck because he didn’t have a convenient way to play it inside the house. Sitting together, he played the rough recording for Ben.
As the song ended, Alan noticed Ben becoming emotional.
According to Jackson, Ben told him the song was “just perfect.”
That simple reaction became one of Alan’s most treasured memories.
After Ben’s death, the memory took on even greater meaning.
When Alan eventually recorded “You’ll Always Be My Baby” for his 2021 album Where Have You Gone, the song carried far more emotional weight than he had originally imagined.
Jackson later admitted that Ben’s death left him struggling emotionally for a long time.
He explained that he had been preparing to release new music, but after the tragedy, everything changed.
“I was kind of mad at the world,” he said in interviews reflecting on that difficult period.
Growing up surrounded by sisters, then later raising three daughters with his wife Denise, Alan explained that having Ben in the family felt like something entirely new.
Ben became the son he never had.
They fished together.
Worked on vehicles together.
Shared interests and experiences that Alan had never enjoyed before.
Losing him so suddenly created a void that was difficult to describe.
As Alan put it, he lost something he had never had before.
Today, “You’ll Always Be My Baby” remains much more than a wedding song.
For the Jackson family, it has become a reminder of love, family, and a young man whose life ended far too soon.
And for Alan Jackson, one of the most meaningful parts of that song will always be the memory of sitting in a truck, playing a rough demo for his son-in-law, and watching Ben Selekman quietly realize just how special it was.