I’ve always had a complicated relationship with fame. It never really made any sense to me. Growing up, we were very religious, so I wasn’t encouraged to idolize other people. I was homeschooled until high school—my dad worked for Major League Baseball, and that required a lot of travel—and it was kind of isolating. I have four siblings, and we were seeing the country, but in a very protected way, so I’d always put together musicals for us to do, or plays. My mom started me on piano when I was six, so I always wanted to perform in some way, but not for other people.
It wasn’t until joining the church choir, when I started getting feedback like, “Hey, you’re actually good.” I asked for a karaoke machine for my birthday or Christmas one year, and I was just on that thing in our basement nonstop, singing Whitney Houston and John Denver and “Old Time Rock and Roll.” I learned “The Dance” by Garth Brooks on the piano, which took a while. The Chicks were really big on my radar, and Faith Hill—I was obsessed with her voice, the rasp in it. I loved country artists who, once they started singing, I could instantly tell it was them. To me, that’s such beautiful individuality, because everyone always says, “Oh, country music sounds the same.” But the artists that have made the most lasting impact, you just know that’s Dolly, that’s Tim McGraw, that’s Alan Jackson.
I was 16 when I knew I wanted to pursue music but faced a pivotal moment. There was talk of me going to Duke University for volleyball—I come from a family of athletes—so I had to make a decision. How much of my life do I want to give to sports? And then I realized you could go to college for music, and that’s what shifted everything for me.
In 2007 the Colorado Rockies, the team my dad coached, were playing the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, and we were there. We were walking to Fenway Park from our hotel, and we passed by Berklee College of Music. I heard all these instruments, and I said, “What is this place? Can we go in?” So we walked in and I couldn’t believe it was a school. I saw musicians playing together and practicing, and said, “I’m going to go here.” I’m really glad I didn’t know how competitive it was.
I had to audition with a jazz piece, so I sang “A-Tisket, A-Tasket” by Ella Fitzgerald. I got in and, for the first time in my life, felt a little bit like an underdog because I wasn’t exactly prepared for the intensity of Berklee. I’m so glad I went, although I didn’t graduate, because while I was there, I took a poetry class for fun, which got me into songwriting. That’s when I met Kara DioGuardi, who was teaching at Berklee. She said I had a knack—but she also said I wasn’t so good yet. That was great to hear, because I feel like nowadays everyone’s just like, “Oh, just express your art! You’re amazing!” So having that feedback early on was helpful because it made me leave Berklee and drive to Nashville by myself to pursue songwriting and to learn how to do it well.
[In Nashville, Ingrid Andress started cowriting songs for artists such as Charli XCX, Bebe Rexha, and Lauren Jenkins while still pursuing a singing career. In 2018 she signed with a major label and released her debut studio album in 2020. By 2021 she was a three-time Grammy nominee. In 2022 she released her second album, Good Person, that included the acclaimed duet “Wishful Drinking” with Sam Hunt, which earned her another Grammy nomination for best country duo/group performance in 2023.]
In July 2024, I sang the national anthem at the MLB Homerun Derby. Singing it publicly wasn’t something I’d always wanted to do. I actually vowed to never sing it. But I was about to launch new music. My dad used to coach baseball, so part of me thought it made sense.
But to be honest, at that point, I’d been unhappy for a while and so I kind of just didn’t give a shit anymore. I’d been so used to being told what to do and where to be, but the more you say yes to, the more exposure you get. I think I lost sight of the fact that I could have said no.
I was nervous but there wasn’t anything special about that day. I hadn’t been back to the [underground] part of a baseball stadium since I was young, and I feel like something shifted after the sound check. It unlocked something that had not yet been dealt with, and that’s when I just lost track of how much tequila I was drinking and was just kind of numbing out, because I wasn’t sure what that feeling was. I don’t remember going out onto the field. I barely remember talking to my best friend after; she called me because she watched it in real time.
When I was younger I got in trouble all the time for normal teenage things—my family was very strict and very religious—but I’d never done anything like this before. I wasn’t even drinking to get drunk. It just got bad really quickly, and nobody was asking me if I was okay because I was presenting so normally. But I realize now that if you don’t address how you’re feeling, alcohol becomes the thing that quiets those feelings without you realizing it. And so, I feel like I was just drinking to numb whatever that feeling was that I was having, being in that stadium. I literally woke up the next day and I was like, “I need to go to rehab now.”
A couple months leading up to that performance, I noticed I was drinking more, but it was always around friends, who probably were like, Oh, that’s just crazy Ingrid, she knows how to party. But I thought, Well, if I’m not causing a problem…. But the correlation between my unhappiness and how much I was drinking was the problem. It was no longer to have a good time. It was to numb the feelings I was having. I had just fired the first and only manager I ever had, and I split up with a guy who was living with me and who I was very serious with and wanted to take it all the way with. I blew up a lot of very meaningful things very quickly. In hindsight, I still would have done those things, but I did not have the emotional tools to navigate the aftermath of that explosion.
The next day I posted about the performance on Instagram, admitting I was drunk. It really threw me, because it was the most vulnerable I’d ever been. And the fact that my honesty seemed to make people hate me even more really hurt because I was so ashamed. There was so much shame and guilt and embarrassment. I thought, Hopefully people know that I’m taking this seriously, and I know that I need help so I’m getting help. That should be a good thing. Apparently not, to so many people. I had never—even being in the spotlight over the years as an artist—received so much hate.
Part of it was maybe people thinking I disrespected America but—and I’ve made this joke a lot—I actually brought America together for a split second. Everyone could agree that what I did fucking sucked. I’ll be a scapegoat, that’s fine, but the thing that got me was the fact that so many male country artists have done far worse things drunk, and it seemed to have boosted their popularity, gained them badassery respect. Boys will be boys, but heaven forbid a blonde-haired girl comes out there drunk out of her mind. Looking so sad, by the way. If you look at the video, I just don’t look okay. I really messed up, but I didn’t break the law.
Thankfully I had a brand-new team, and they stepped up to the plate in such a beautiful way.If I didn’t have them, I don’t think I would have recovered as well. They said, “Go get help. We’ll figure this out when you feel like you’re ready. But take your time. Go get your mind right.”
I’m very open about going to rehab, because I think it’s a privilege to be able to go. Sometimes there’s such a taboo about it, like “Oh, that person’s broken,” but it felt like an emotional hospital for processing emotions and doing trauma work, and learning to care about how you feel again and what your coping mechanisms are. It was a bit of a relief too—I wasn’t allowed to have my phone, which was helpful because I basically went straight from the anthem to rehab.
While I was there, the amount of texts I received was unlike anything I’d experienced. Despite all the hate and shame, I was met with so much love and support and messages that people definitely didn’t have to send, but they did. Many were from fellow female country artists telling me, “It happens. You’re human,” or “I’ve been there.”
And so, in that moment of feeling so down, there was something beautiful about being reminded of humanity. And there are probably many comments like that on my Instagram post too—I still haven’t read most of them. Some days, when I’m feeling extra confident and taking enough vitamin B and feeling myself after a Pilates class, I’ll be like, “You know what? I think I got this today and I’m going to look.” But nope, not yet.
The whole experience made me look at things in a new way. Reemerging now, everything hits a little different, because once you see how quickly people love you and how quickly they turn on you, it makes you realize that you have to be okay with who you are. Like, actually. Not just making TikTok videos about how you found yourself during your Eat, Pray, Love era. You have to believe it without caring if anybody else even knows. That’s all you have.
Up to the anthem moment, I was so nervous about saying the wrong thing or looking bad. I was so uptight because I felt like my fans didn’t really know who I was. My fear of failure was so strong, which helped get me to a successful place but also drove me to the lowest point in my life. When I sang the National Anthem again in 2025 at the Colorado Avalanche hockey game in Denver, I was so nervous, obviously, and there was an echo in the arena. I was like, Oh, great—now it’s going to sound bad. But I faced my fear in singing it again and didn’t ruin it. It was well received.
I no longer seek perfection, because I don’t want to ever get back to that place again. And I hope more people don’t have to hit a rock bottom to realize that perfection is an unattainable thing. And the sooner you can get off that path and accept yourself for all the shit that doesn’t look pretty, you’ll be so much happier. And you’ll be more empathetic toward other people. Because if you’re giving yourself grace to mess up, you’ll give others grace.
I’ve been working on new music, and I’m starting to ease back into shows and testing how I feel about it, because after you get absolutely murdered on the internet, you’re not dying to get back out into the public eye. But I do miss my fans and I miss playing shows. I’m almost done with this album, and I’m going to start figuring out how I want to go about touring. But first and foremost, I’m really excited for people to hear what I’ve been working on, because the songs are—they’re not rehab songs, but they’re versions of me that have wanted to come out for a while, now that I feel better about being in my own skin and feeling like nothing can hurt me anymore.
It sounds so cheesy, but I really do mean it when I say I’m starting to appreciate human error, because it reminds me that I’m alive. In a world where we’re really confused about what’s real and what’s not—and it’s only going to become harder and the lines are going to become more blurred—knowing that I can come back from a mistake is probably the most empowering thing I feel as a human. I hate that society makes us feel like failure is so bad, because it would be impossible to live without failure. We’d all be dead.
Every time I’m having a reaction or anxiety about failure, it’s like, Okay, well, what would I tell younger me now? What would I want her to know? I would tell her, “The fact that you’re even wanting to try is amazing, and it’s going to go the way it goes, and you’re going to do it the best way that you know how. And that’s all you can do.”
This interview with Ingrid Andress has been edited and condensed for clarity.
The post Ingrid Andress, After the National Anthem appeared first on Glamour.
