Carly Pearce Talks Dollywood, Nashville, & Hummingbird
The episode cold-opens with Carly Pearce’s very human tour story: onstage, a glass ranch dressing bottle slices her thumb. It’s two stitches, nothing more, but an ambulance ride to the ER turns into clicky headlines. The exchange sets a tone you’ll see throughout the conversation: a public life magnifying private moments, and Pearce calmly reframing the narrative.
From there, the chat drifts into red wine confessions (purple lips, unglamorous teeth) before Bunnie moves into a quickfire segment that tees up the personal terrain to come.
Love & dating quickfire: red flags, worst lines, and a childhood crush
Pearce calls it early: a first-date red flag is someone who only talks about themselves. If he asked you out, she adds, he should pick up the first check, after that, split however you like.
A memorably bad DM? “Are you seeing anybody? … Not that I’d care either way.” The ego in that, she says, was an instant no.
Her childhood celebrity crush was Lance Bass, a light detail that reminds you how often pop and country fandoms overlapped for her generation.
Growing up tall, creative, and “different”: yodel flips & playground labels
Carly Pearce sketches a childhood where being 5’7″ in fifth grade came with nicknames (“Shrek”) and where loving country and bluegrass wasn’t the cool choice, even in Kentucky. She also cops to a now-retired yodel, the falsetto “flip” that still colors her vocal phrasing came from trying to sing “Cowboy Sweetheart” like LeAnn Rimes.
The thread here is not pity but context: an early sense of otherness that forged audience awareness, stage instincts, and, later, empathy for young creatives who don’t fit the academic mold.
Chasing Dollywood: homeschool hustle and six shows a day
At 15–16, Pearce persuades her parents to let her homeschool, auditions for Dollywood, and lands a job that becomes a masterclass in repetition and resilience: six shows a day, five days a week. Her family splits time so she can work, mom in Pigeon Forge, dad back in Kentucky caring for a relative.
Those seasons taught her to sing sick, show up when she didn’t feel like it, and love the grind. She went back for prom and graduation, but she never romanticizes “the best years” as high school. The best years, she implies, should be the ones you’re living.
Nashville reality checks: development deals, Airbnbs, and the Opry circle rule
Pearce moves to Nashville at 19, signs a development deal, then loses it when a producer is fired. The timeline is familiar to any Music Row veteran: retail shifts, cleaning Airbnbs (hair and stains were her OCD nightmare), and a stint as a backup singer for Lucy Hale.
One telling boundary: during a Hale video on the Grand Ole Opry stage, Pearce refused to step into the circle, saving it for when it was truly her moment. For a while she wondered if backup vocals might be the lane; then she met busbee.
“Every Little Thing”: the hit that wasn’t, until it was
With busbee and publisher Daniel Lee, Pearce cut a five-song EP anchored by “Every Little Thing.” Labels and managers shrugged; people told her to go home. Then SiriusXM The Highway spun it. Within hours, industry interest flipped.
Pearce lingers on this not to self-mythologize, but to underline what new artists miss when they chase consensus: you don’t know which moment turns the lights on. For her, it was a heartbreak ballad with sparse production that broke in the middle of bro-country summer.
Busbee’s imprint: trusting instincts and the cost of time
The conversation turns intimate when she speaks about busbee, co-writer, producer, and creative ballast, diagnosed with glioblastoma while they finished “I Hope You’re Happy Now.” In their final conversation, he pointed to a clock: you can buy anything except time.
Pearce credits him with insisting she was “enough,” pushing her to stop chasing trends, and, after his passing, emboldening her to co-produce and back her own taste. His presence lives in her catalog (including “Show Me Around”) and in the way she steers sessions today.
Anxiety, OCD, and the performance mask
Pearce reframes her mental-health narrative: what she once thought of as pandemic- and divorce-era anxiety rests on a foundation of lifelong OCD, checking alarms and bags, storm fears, perfectionist loops modeled (unintentionally) by a meticulous mom.
Years of cameras taught her to “zip it up” on cue; therapy helped her name and interrupt the patterns. She doesn’t dramatize it; she simply places it alongside the career story fans already know, which is why those fans tell her the songs helped them through their own pain.
Why “Carly Pearce”? a family name with a country lineage
Her legal surname isn’t Pearce; it’s her mother’s maiden name. Grandparents who adored Loretta and Tammy fed her a steady diet of country history, bought era-spanning compilations, and celebrated her dream of the Opry. Taking their name kept them close, and now it’s the surname on the “Home of Carly Pearce” signs back home.
Women in country: branding, the “top five,” and a crowded field of talent
Pearce and Bunnie take a frank detour into gender dynamics. Pearce argues this might be the strongest crop of women in years, artists with distinct voices who don’t blur together on radio. The pressure point, she says, is scarcity: if you’re not in the “top five,” it can feel like there’s no room.
Her larger point: women are often required to be more clearly branded to cut through, while many male voices are interchangeable. The solution isn’t complaint; it’s differentiation and persistence, something her own arc illustrates.
Marriage, divorce, and the “Jolene” moment
Pearce doesn’t sensationalize her 2019 marriage or the eight-month path to divorce. She says the relationship moved fast, without the deeper conversations that sustain a touring life. Asked about rumors and a third party, framed cheekily as “Is she Jolene?”, Pearce doesn’t name names, but she’s clear: the situation hurt, and she stayed quieter than she could have.
She’s not interested in score-settling; she’s interested in boundaries and self-respect. The result was the 29 era, songs written from the middle of the wreckage, not as retaliation but as documentation. The women who tell her those songs helped them? That, she says, made the pain worth something.
A year of whiplash: 29, an Opry invitation, and major awards
Within roughly a year, Pearce releases 29, is invited by Dolly Parton to join the Grand Ole Opry, wins Female Vocalist of the Year (twice), and takes home a GRAMMY with Ashley McBryde. She presents these not as trophies but as proof that authenticity travels, even (or especially) when life is messy.
The accident, the rumors, and going on anyway
In 2020, just days before a CMA moment, Pearce suffers an accident that chips both front teeth and leaves seven stitches in her lip. She still attends, lip bleeding, teeth temporarily bonded, and wakes up to chatter about a “botched lip job.” She never publicly corrected it at the time; in her telling, that restraint was less strategy than a reluctance to feed the frenzy. The next day? Three root canals.
A real health scare: recurrent pericarditis
Pearce also details a diagnosis of recurrent pericarditis, inflammation of the sac around the heart, that began with chest pain and shortness of breath in 2020. After fainting and an ER visit confirmed it, she experienced occasional “flares” that forced her to rework live shows, more stationary sets, monitoring heart rate.
She went public partly to explain that shift and partly to urge self-advocacy; multiple doctors initially dismissed her symptoms as stress. She’s now under specialist care via the Life Disrupted campaign and, while some people live with flares for years, she’s learned how to manage them and has avoided another major episode.
Hummingbird and the sound she’s staking her name on
Released in June 2024, Hummingbird doubled down on the traditional, roots-leaning country Pearce loves, Appalachian textures, bluegrass edges, lived-in stories. She co-produced the project and later finished her next album, which she describes as the most “her” she’s ever been.
Why the title? She learned after writing the song “Hummingbird” that the bird often symbolizes healing and good luck, a tidy mirror of the music’s intent. The album marked a bridge from surviving to meaning-making.
Life beyond the studio: tattoos, boundaries, and a new relationship
There’s lighter texture, too: a grin about a growing tattoo cluster (“maybe a sleeve?”), and a candid note about dating, she hard-launched a relationship she’s happy in, met on Raya, with someone outside entertainment. The broader point is less gossip than agency: she’s done apologizing for living on her own timeline.
What’s next for Carly Pearce
Pearce says her upcoming music leans even further into the influences she grew up on, Kentucky/Appalachian and bluegrass-rooted writing, without chasing trends. The promise is more of what her fans tend to value: clarity of voice, honesty about the past, and songs that feel lived-in.
Why this conversation matters to Carly Pearce fans
This Bunnie XO episode doesn’t try to be definitive. Instead, it offers the connective tissue behind the discography: the Dollywood discipline that made the work possible; the busbee counsel that tuned her compass; the anxiety and OCD that complicate “showtime”; the Opry devotion; the accident, the illness, the divorce; and the stubborn belief that the most durable path forward is the one that sounds like Carly Pearce.
Lightly skimmable highlights (for readers in a hurry)
- Dollywood at 16: six shows a day, five days a week
- Breakout: “Every Little Thing” goes from industry pass to Highway hit
- Creative North Star: producer/co-writer busbee and his “time” lesson
- Mental health: lifelong OCD; therapy and naming the pattern
- Health: recurrent pericarditis; touring adjustments and self-advocacy
- Awards: Opry membership, Female Vocalist of the Year, GRAMMY with Ashley McBryde
- Latest era: Hummingbird (2024) and a forthcoming album with deeper Appalachian roots