{"id":25304,"date":"2026-05-19T08:33:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=25304"},"modified":"2026-05-19T08:33:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T08:33:00","slug":"hannah-harper-reveals-carrie-underwoods-honest-advice-after-her-american-idol-win-that-changed-her-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/?p=25304","title":{"rendered":"Hannah Harper Reveals Carrie Underwood\u2019s Honest Advice After Her American Idol Win That Changed Her Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a week since Hannah Harper was crowned the winner of American Idol 2026, becoming the first female country artist to win the title since the show moved to ABC, and actually, since Carrie Underwood won in 2004, and life couldn\u2019t be sweeter.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m debuting at the [Grand Ole] Opry,\u201d she told Parade in this exclusive interview. \u201cI found that out just a few days ago. There\u2019s several tour opportunities. The books are full for the year, so now we\u2019re looking at next year and we\u2019re recording. Just so many things have changed in the last few months from being off the show and I continue to be surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"American<\/p>\n

What was especially surprising to Hannah was hearing host Ryan Seacrest announce her name as the winner, but she says, it\u2019s a moment she definitely remembers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt felt surreal but more than anything I think in those moments you kind of black out a little bit just from all the emotions, but either way I was going to celebrate because I was ready to celebrate with [runner-up] Jordan [McCullough],\u201d she says. \u201cI was absolutely ready for that and then when they said my name, which normally my name is called last for every single round, it was just an incredible feeling of gratitude more than anything because I know that it wasn\u2019t my doing. The people who watched every single week and voted every single week made that happen, so that was an emotional roller coaster for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\"Carrie<\/p>\n

With all the craziness that happens when the winner is announced, Carrie did find a moment to take Hannah aside and speak with her. Not surprising, because Carrie has been a big supporter of the mom of three since she auditioned with her original song \u201cString Cheese\u201d about postpartum depression, and Carrie told her then during her audition, \u201cYou might be my favorite person that\u2019s walked through those doors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last Monday night, Hannah shares that Carrie wanted her to make sure that Hannah knew that winning American Idol wasn\u2019t \u201creal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Carrie<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing that was real and mattered was my kids and my relationship with my husband, which I think is very important,\u201d Hannah says. \u201cI think that\u2019s why so many people admire Dolly [Parton] because she\u2019s such a character. She can put it on and then she can take it off and she can be a separate person, so I\u2019m struggling with that because I take pride in authenticity, of being real on stage and off stage, so just balancing those relationships is going to be hard at first. I think we\u2019ll get it, but like I said, Carrie just wanted to make sure that I kept a hold of the grasp of reality once everything settled down and just made sure to still focus on the priorities, which is my kids and my husband.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hannah<\/p>\n

As to what\u2019s next for Hannah, after a few weeks relaxing back home in Willow Springs, Missouri, with husband Devon Mendenhall and her children, Hannah wants to get back to work and release more of the solo songs that she\u2019s written.<\/p>\n

\u201cOriginals are definitely where my heart is,\u201d she shares. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to rerelease \u2018Married into This Town,\u2019 the full version, because we had to shorten it so much for the show. I think it was like a minute and 10 seconds, so we\u2019re going to do a full version of it probably pretty soon. Then I have several that I\u2019ve been writing for the last couple months in my back pocket that I\u2019m ready to let the world hear.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been a week since Hannah Harper was crowned the winner of American Idol 2026, becoming the first female country artist to win the title since the… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25305,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25304","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25304"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25306,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304\/revisions\/25306"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25305"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow24.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}