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Carly Pearce candidly opened up about how she feels most misunderstood, and set the record straight.
Pearce, 34, appeared on the latest episode of The Squeeze with actor Taylor Lautner and his wife, Taylor Lautner (neé Dome). Throughout the conversation, the Grammy-winning artist spoke with the trio about her bold move to Tennessee to Kentucky in pursuit of her career in music, the challenges and hope she feels as a woman in country, the aftermath of her divorce, her experience with anxiety and therapy, and much more.
When asked the most misunderstood thing about her, Pearce took a moment before she shared her answer.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been able to say this,” she said on the podcast. The most misunderstood thing about Pearce, she said candidly, is “that I don’t know how to be in a relationship and I only write music about my messed up relationships. That is so not true. I think love is so beautiful, and I know that I want that and desire that, and just because I’ve — a lot of us write about the same stuff. It just seems to be kind of a stigma that has hung over me because somebody was able to attach a name to my songs. And I’m so much more than that.”
Pearce has previously opened up about her divorce, including in her music. She released her third studio album, 29: Written in Stone, in September 2021. The project included deeply vulnerable heartbreak ballads and relatable lyrics that prompted booming sing-along moments during Pearce’s live performances. 29: Written in Stone included “Diamondback,” “Next Girl,” “What He Didn’t Do,” “29” and “Never Wanted To Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde — which earned a Grammy Award — among other highlights.
Most recently, Pearce delivered her fourth record in June. The 14-track album, hummingbird, a fitting title that Pearce noted signifies challenges coming to an end, and healing and good luck are ahead. She recently told iHeartCountry of the “haunting” title track: “I grew up loving bluegrass music, and when I wrote this song, I really wanted to kind of honor that sound that has been so influential in my music. …I loved Allison Krauss as a kid, and I wanted to write something that felt haunting like that. And I kind of wanted to write a very poetic lyric that…stood for, ‘I’m not gonna settle anymore.’ I’m not gonna look back, and I’m gonna keep going.”
Pearce recently kicked off her first-ever headlining world tour. The “hummingbird tour” spans through mid-May 2025. See the dates here.