Carrie Underwood Says Stitches From Her Accident Made It Impossible to Sing

Carrie Underwood fell on steps in front of her home in November 2017, requiring 40 to 50 stitches to her face, but the singer revealed in a new interview with Vulture that her accident impacted her much more than she had previously shared.

Underwood released her latest album, Cry Pretty, in September, and recorded much of the project this year. In her interview, she revealed that that was due to the fact that her stitches made it "physically impossible" for her to sing.

"I had wanted to be in the studio sooner than I was, actually recording these songs, but I had stitches inside my mouth, outside my mouth," she said. "It was physically impossible."

As a result, the soon-to-be mom of two admitted that she was worried about how she sounded when she did make her return to the studio with co-producer David Garcia.

"Going into the studio for the first time, it was a mind game: 'Do I sound the same? Is my diction the same? Does my mouth move the same as it did before?'" she recalled. "I would sing something and then look at David and be like, 'Did that all come out clearly?' My m's and b's and p's were kind of the issue. And he was like, 'I thought it sounded great.'"

"I felt like the differences were more in my head than they were in anybody else's that would listen to the things I was doing," she added.

The 25-year-old also noted that voices change no matter what, something she's prepared for.

"Things change just as you get older; your muscles change," she said. "I kind of expect I'm not always going to sound like I'm 22 coming off of American Idol. Hopefully I get better."

Underwood's powerful voice is a cornerstone of who she is as an artist, and she shared in the interview that while she experimented with new types of phrasing and delivery on Cry Pretty, she'll never lose her status as a vocal acrobat.

"I'm never gonna become some folk-y singer where it's just me and a guitar and I never leave my mid-register," she said. "That's just not who I am. This is part of me … If you have too many songs in a row that are more chill or laid-back – I don't wanna say I get bored, but kind of. I grew up listening to people that did vocal acrobatics, and I loved it. I listened to every note and would try to teach myself how to do it. That's just me, but it's nice to explore other sides of what I can do and figure it out for myself: Can I sing softer? Can I not belt out everything?"

Photo Credit: Getty / Jeff Kravitz / AMA2018