Kay Kinsey Is Karl Malone's Wife & a Former Beauty Queen – Meet Her

NBA's legendary power forward Karl Malone married 1988 Ms. Idaho Kay Kinsey on December 4, 1990. The couple has remained happily married ever since.

Now that Malone has retired, the family moved back to Louisiana, where they run several businesses. Kinsey is mainly concerned with the restaurant part of their group of ventures which includes a clothing store and an apartment complex.

Despite suffering kidney complications in 2021, Kinsey has remained active and has shared photos of attending her children's weddings and times shared with her grandchildren.

Kay Kinsey Met Her Future Husband after Winning Ms. Idaho

Kinsey's life changed drastically after she won the Ms. Idaho competition in 1988. Her increase in popularity may have brought her onto the radar of Malone, who had just hit the ground running, making it into the All-NBA second team and earning the first of his 14 All-Star appearances that year. They met in 1989 in Salt Lake City.

Comically though, Malone admitted that when his future wife first heard of him, she didn't know who he was. She was told that he was "The Mailman," in reference to his nickname, which he got for his consistency in delivering. The basketball star says his wife was asking whether he was the first black mailman in Utah or something.

After a short courtship, Kinsey had her walk down the aisle in December 1990. The two have had a relatively stable marriage and even help each other with the house chores. Kinsey taught her husband to do the tasks when he went through a difficult period on the sidelines from the game due to an injury. Kinsey said:

"I started making him do honeydos. A list of things that need to be done, like pick up the kids, go to their games, get team snacks for the kids' games. He became Mr. Mom."

Kay Kinsey Now Runs the Family Business and Leads a Regular Life in Louisiana

After Malone retired from the NBA, his family moved back to his home state of Louisiana, where they established several businesses. One of their ventures is the Legends Cigar and Vape shop, run by his daughter, Kadee Malone.

Their business empire includes a clothing store called the 5.11 Tactical by Karl Malone, the Teriyaki Grill restaurant, where Kinsey usually is, and an apartment complex that houses Louisiana Tech University students, which he used to be a part of. Locals refer to the area where most of their businesses are as "Malone Town."

The Malone family live an ordinary life in Ruston and have since moved away from their life in the limelight during Malone's NBA days. Kinsey expressed that people in their neighborhood don't see him as a basketball player, and some kids don't even know he played basketball.

Kay Kinsey Survived a Kidney Complication & Thanked God for Her Recovery

In early 2021, Kinsey experienced some health problems caused by kidney failure. Two kidney stones had gotten stuck and caused an infection that spread to her bloodstream, making her go into septic shock. Kinsey was rushed to the hospital by her husband, where the medical staff was able to help her and keep her alive.

Kinsey is already a grandmother, her first coming in 2020 after her second oldest daughter, Kylee, gave birth to baby Giselle.

A month after the incident, Kinsey was recovering well and kept her social media followers up to date about her getting back to fitness. She was vocal about her faith, thanking God for helping her and her family through the most challenging phase.

Kay Kinsey Basks in Her Happy Life as a Mom & Grandma

Kinsey and Malone were blessed with four children. Kadee is the oldest and is around 31 or 32 this year. She is two years older than Kylee, who is also two years older than their parent's only son, Karl Jr., referred to by "KJ." The youngest is Karlee and is three years younger than Karl Jr.

Kinsey's three youngest children have all been wedded during the last three years, KJ in December 2020, Karlee in January 2022, and Kylee in February 2023. Their proud mother has shared photos from the wedding where she has shown never to let her exquisite taste in fashion down.

Kinsey is already a grandmother, her first coming in 2020 after her second oldest daughter, Kylee, gave birth to baby Giselle. However, Kinsey was already technically a grandmother before then. Before she married Malone, he already had three children, twins Cheryl and Daryl Ford and Demetress Bell.

Therefore, before Kylee had Gisele, Malone, like his teammate from the USA national team, Michael Jordan, already had grandchildren from his three older children, eight to be exact. That made Gisele Malone's ninth grandchild. Photos of the grandchildren are found on Kinsey's Instagram.