‘American Idol’ Favorite Announces Pregnancy — and the Baby Will Be Country Music Royalty

Country music royalty is adding another member to its prestigious club after an American Idol favorite announced her pregnancy.

Season 22 contestant Emmy Russell, who is the granddaughter of Grammy winner Loretta Lynn, is pregnant with baby No. 2.

“Secrets out! Baby #2,” Russell, 27, wrote on Instagram on Feb. 26 alongside a video of her and her daughter, 1, surprising her husband, singer-songwriter Tyler Ward, 41, with the positive pregnancy test. The happy couple secretly tied the knot in 2024 and announced in December of that year that they were expecting their first child.

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Taylor Raydiant was born on Jan. 31, 2025, but the labor was not an easy one. Ward took to his wife’s Instagram account a few days later to update followers, revealing that while she had given birth, she was in a “really, really tough situation and she’s still here in the hospital,” he said in a video. From a previous video, Russell, lying in her hospital bed, explains that she was almost discharged, but then she was “feeling a little woozy,” and she got up and thought she was going to pass out. Doctors told her she had lost a liter of blood and had to have a blood transfusion, later revealing it was 1.6liters.

In an interview with PEOPLE in late February 2025, Russell said her “labor was long, but it was worth it.” She was in labor for 36 hours and was “really out of it because I was losing so much blood, and so I wasn’t really able to lift her my entire time at the hospital. But every time that I did get the chance to… that’s your child, it just melts your heart. I didn’t really know that kind of love existed.”

Now that Russell is pregnant with her second child, she seems to be doing well, but is likely taking extra precautions to make sure that this is a safe pregnancy for both her and the baby. She and Ward seem to be as excited as ever to give little Taylor a little brother or sister, and it’s as sweet as can be.

As previously mentioned, Russell and Ward’s second baby is country music royalty just like its big sister. Russell is the granddaughter of the late Loretta Lynn, who has several CMA, ACM, and Grammy Awards, and, as of 2022, was the most-awarded female country recording artist and the only ACM Artist of the Decade in the ‘70s. Lynn died in her sleep at 90 years old in October 2022 of natural causes. Russell carried on her grandmother’s legacy in Season 22 of American Idol in 2024 and made it to the Top 5 before being eliminated on Disney Night a week before the grand finale.