Carly Pearce Recalls Moment She 'Freaked out' When Writing 'I Hope You're Happy Now'

When Carly Pearce sat down with Luke Combs and Jonathan Singleton to write "I Hope You're Happy Now," her current single with Lee Brice, she knew she wanted to be vulnerable and honest about her former relationship, which she left when she started developing feelings for Michael Ray. But when she found out that Singleton took the tune to hit songwriter, Randy Montana, to help finish it, Pearce had a moment of panic, for a very personal reason.

"When I found out that Randy Montana was a part of finishing the song I kind of freaked out a little bit because it took it too personal," Pearce shared with her record label. "He's friends with this person and that scared me slightly. But I think as a songwriter and as an artist you're taking the chance that the person that you are writing songs about, if you're gonna go this deep with it, they're gonna hear them.

"I decided to kind of put caution to the wind and have zero boundaries and really just write it the way that it happened," she continued. "And I'm sure that he's probably heard it but I hope that it brought him some sort of closure, because he never heard from me in a way that I feel like maybe this song has given him. I do wish him well and hope that he is happy now."

Pearce couldn't deny her feelings for Ray, even though that hurt someone she also cared about, which is why the message in "I Hope You're Happy Now" became so important to her.

"What makes it so beautiful is this is my apology to this person," Pearce acknowledged. "I actually was pretty emotional at first when I saw the artwork of the heart and listening to the song because I genuinely didn't mean to hurt this person and I genuinely hope the best for them and I genuinely hope that they're happy now. So I will never exploit their name or poke fun at them in the way that I did the guy that hurt me.

"But this is a genuine feeling that I think he probably knew would eventually come out in some way in my music, because that's what we do as songwriters," she added. "And I feel like what I went through so many people go through and what Lee is singing about so many people got through."

"I Hope You're Happy Now" is from Pearce's just-released sophomore album, available now via her website.

Photo Credit: Getty / Roger Kisby