Carrie Underwood Says She Related To “Before He Cheats” From Personal Experience

Carrie Underwood country music
Carrie Underwood/Howard Stern

I don’t know how someone could ever cheat on Carrie Underwood, but apparently, it happened…

Earlier this year, Carrie appeared on Sirius XM’s Howard Stern Show to promote her new Sirius channel Carrie’s Country, which will be coming in June, and they got to talking about her hit song “Before He Cheats.”

From her debut studio album Some Hearts, it would go on to become a massive crossover hit and a #1 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for five straight weeks, and even a top ten hit on the Billboard Mainstream Top 40 charts.

Written by Josh Kear and Chris Tompkins, it actually started out as a song for Gretchen Wilson, but ultimately, that didn’t work out.

And Carrie told Howard that she and her label were actually nervous about putting the song out, because it was much more aggressive than the single they released prior, her mega hit “Jesus Take The Wheel.”

She also joked that she hadn’t really destroying anyone’s car, but the fun part about music can be getting to play a character that’s so different from who you are:

“That’s the fun thing about music. You do get to play a character. You do get to sing about things, or write things, or make music videos or whatever, about things that you wouldn’t actually do in your life.

But it is fun to get into character and act like you would. It’s usually towards the end of the show or it’s the encore, and I feel like immediately when it comes in, the audience just starts bumping.

There’s this weird little undulation thing that just starts happening, the crowd comes alive.”

And that’s when he asked if she had ever been cheated on or personally gone through that kind of thing, and she said she had back in her 20’s when she was in college.

Carrie added that it was a “very big moment” in her life, where she realized that she was with someone she thought she knew so well, and she couldn’t have been more wrong:

“I mean, at the time I was young. I was in my 20’s, I was in college.

And I feel like that was a very big moment where it was like, I really thought I knew this person, and it turns out I really didn’t know this person at all.”

She also added that she might not have really been in love as she views it now:

“Probably as in love as a 20-something year old could be, you know?”

And when it comes to revenge and how she feels about that relationship now, Carrie says it’s not something she really ever thinks about, but she did ultimately have the last laugh…

“I don’t think about it that much anymore, but earlier in my career thinking about, he’s probably in the grocery story checkout line and I’m on a magazine. There’s a little pettiness.”

And speaking of petty, one of the top comments for the “Before He Cheats” music video on YouTube always makes me laugh…

“Tip, ladies: don’t slash all four tires. Insurance pays for that. Just slash three, and he’ll have to pay for them himself.”

And while I don’t think that’s actually true, leaving him with one good tire might sting a little more.

You can watch part of her interview with Stern here:

Carrie also performed her 2012 #1 hit “Blown Away” during the show:

Let’s cue it up…

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