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It would be impossible to talk to Toby Keith and not bring up the $500 million elephant in the room, right? I had a chance to catch up with Keith on Sunday (June 30) shortly after the Forbes magazine story on his staggering fortune came out.

"It's weird that my income is important to people," he said. "Man, I am not comfortable with my success. I do my stuff every night. I play my songs for my crowd. I got my bars and grills. I got my race horses and stuff. But at the end of the day, I drive a pickup truck, and I play golf with my shirttail out. I'm just not that Donald Trump kind of guy."

The cover story details Keith's impressive numbers, estimating his total career earnings are more than $500 million.

"Your fortune shouldn't matter to anybody," Keith told me. "But it does, and I'm not comfortable with that."

One thing he is very comfortable with is how well adjusted his teenage son is.

"He's so grounded. He's an honor roll kid. He gets himself to work. He sets his alarm and gets up and gets himself to school," Keith said, admitting that when he was a teenager you had to drag him out of bed.

"He's got football practice at 6 a.m. in the summertime, so he gets up at 5:30 and goes and lifts and runs and works out for three hours. I was at the drive-in with a chick and running around town. He's way better than I was."