Carrie Underwood's scars have caused some unfortunate baggage these past few months, but she might have finally dropped the luggage off. Wednesday night, Underwood took the stage at the CMT awards to perform "Cry Pretty" and didn't mention her medical troubles once.
Underwood hid from the public while she recovered from a nasty fall from November 2017 to April of this year and, when she returned, the public took a magnifying glass to her face, searching for proof of the accident. In the weeks since she officially returned to the spotlight with "Cry Pretty," Underwood has tried — and failed, kind of — to shake the interest in her scars (or lack thereof). In an interview with Hoda Kotb for The Today Show, Kotb told Underwood, "I'm looking at you and I feel like you look the same," Kotb told Underwood in May. "Like, I feel like you look the same."
AdvertisementADVERTISEMENT
This comment, seemingly innocuous, was itself a form of scrutiny. After all, who are we to judge the effects of scarring?
The issue, though, appears to be in the past, as Underwood sang "Cry Pretty" Wednesday night and took home one of the night's biggest awards. Underwood won for "Female Video Of The Year" for her collaboration with Ludacris earlier this year. Joel McHale, the presenter, handed her the award. (No one knows why McHale was present.)
"Thank you God for all of us who are lucky enough who sit over here that we get to do what we get to do," Underwood told the crowd. “And thank God for you guys — the fans. You guys really are the reason that we get to do what we do. Whoever went and voted for anybody, just thank you for taking the time. It means everything."
The CMT Music Awards are based on votes from fans, so the ceremony was especially fan-focused. Underwood said in a pre-ceremony interview that her favorite part of the CMT Music Awards is that she gets to perform directly for the fans.
Watch her full performance at the show, below.