Lady Antebellum Musical Surprise

Lady Antebellum, Anderson Cooper Surprise Military Wife

Posted May 10th 2012 -- 4:45 PM by Stephen L. Betts

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper is used to uncovering news but in his other gig as a daytime talk-show host, he managed, with the help of Lady Antebellum, to keep some surprise news under wraps for one military spouse. (Watch the video below.)

During Jessica Stokes' sit-down interview with him on the set of the "Anderson" show, the host asked, "How big a [Lady A] fan are you?" "Ever since I heard their first song on the radio," she told him, "just every song after that I've loved, loved, loved."

However, because her husband is in the Air Force and they've spent the last three years in Germany, Jessica noted, they've never been able to see the group in concert. "There's not a whole lot of country music going on in Germany. They were playing a show in London in the summer of 2010, it was August. So, we actually bought tickets to go see them. We had meet-and-greet passes to meet them backstage. Military, when we fly overseas, it's sort of stand-by ... If they have room on the plane you can fly with them. So the kids and I were trying to get back to Germany so that my husband and I could take a weekend, it was going to be our anniversary gift. We didn't make the flight. The night of the concert the kids and I were actually sleeping on the floor of the terminal. So we haven't been able to see them but it would be amazing."

Jessica went on to explain that because she and her husband have to spend so much time apart, she thinks about him when she hears the Lady A song, "I Run to You," adding that she feels that many of the songs the group sings are about her and her husband.

Anderson then proceeded to ask Jessica a serious of trivia questions about her favorite trio for the chance to win tickets to finally see them live. For the final question, she was asked to identify the song that was playing, which she did almost immediately.

We won't spoil the surprise as far as exactly what happened next. We'll just say that when Jessica realized what was going on, her response was an enthusiastic, incredulous "SHUT UP!"

Watch Lady A on "Anderson"