Country singer Ingrid Andress felt the support of her community after sparking backlash with her drunk national anthem performance last summer.
Andress, 33, spoke for the first time about the now-viral mishap — which resulted in her checking into rehab — on the Thursday, March 6, episode of Nick Viall‘s “Viall Files” podcast. Andress said it was “really meaningful” that other musicians rallied around her in that moment.
“I was expecting no one to reach out, but there was just so much outpouring of love from female country artists in Nashville,” she said. “I actually felt, like, so loved and seen going into rehab.”
Andress named Elle King and Kelsea Ballerini as being among the artists who sent her support. “Elle King was like, ‘This is just all part of it, girl,'” Andress recalled. “She’s obviously been there before, too. … And that really meant a lot to me.”
In June 2024, Andress sang “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the MLB Home Run Derby in Arlington, Texas, and her rendition quickly made headlines. One day after the event, Andress announced she was seeking professional help.
“I’m not gonna bulls— y’all, I was drunk last night,” she wrote in an Instagram statement at the time. “I’m checking myself into a facility today to get the help I need. That was not me last night. I apologize to MLB, all the fans, and this country I love so much for that rendition. I’ll let y’all know how rehab is I hear it’s super fun.”
As she reflected on the mishap on Thursday, Andress admitted that she “was really loving the numbing feeling” that she had after drinking. “It wasn’t until I woke up the next day where I was like, ‘OK, this is so unlike me.’ Like, ‘This is not OK.’ … Because I actually walked out [onto the field] and did not care. I was just like, ‘I don’t care how this goes,'” she said.
Andress was “so f—ed up” that she initially thought she “kind of nailed” her performance. “My best friend called me after I got off the field and I remember briefly talking to her. She’s like, ‘So how do you think that went?’ … She was very delicate,” Andress recalled.
The songwriter added that when she woke up the next morning, she didn’t have much recollection of the performance, which was “terrifying.” At that point, she made the decision to call her management and go to rehab.
“It only took, you know, global humiliation for me to be like, ‘This is a problem,'” she joked. (Andress recently performed the anthem again at a Colorado Avalanche hockey game, her first public event since the MLB incident.)
King, meanwhile, gave her own drunken performance at the Grand Ole Opry in January 2024 during a tribute to Dolly Parton. “I’ll tell you one thing more: ‘Hi, my name is Elle King [and] I’m f—ing hammered,'” she said in footage from the event shared online.
Several months later, King revealed on the “Dear Chelsea” podcast that she was going through something “very heavy and traumatic,” which led to her “big no-no” on stage. “I suffer from severe PTSD. That day, I hadn’t eaten, I hadn’t slept in days, and I was really overwhelmed. I was like a shell of myself,” she explained in May 2024. “I take one shot too many, and I’m just not there in my body, I’m not there. I don’t remember it. … I was mortified.”
King said she apologized to both the Opry and Parton, who told her, “Well, Dolly’s not mad at you, why should the world be?”
