Trisha Yearwood Recalls Heartwarming Conversation With Fan Struggling With Body Image

Trisha Yearwood is celebrating women with her current single, “Every Girl in This Town.” The song, which is inching close to the Top 20, has a powerful message about celebrating females regardless of their age, race, ethnicity, income, or any other factor. Yearwood was already passionate about the message in the song, but didn’t realize how passionate until she met a fan, who was struggling with her own body image.

“I had a moment, when I realized this might be bigger than the song,” Yearwood recalled on the All Our Favorite People podcast. “We were in Chattanooga on Saturday signing albums, and this woman came through with her daughter. And this woman was beautiful and her daughter was beautiful. But the mom didn’t want to be… She wanted to put her daughter in front of her for the photo. She didn’t think she looked good. She wanted to do a selfie, because she didn’t want to show her body.

“And I don’t know what happened to me,” she continued. “Maybe it’s that I had not slept in a few days, but I just took her aside and I said, ‘Look, you need to stop this right now. I’m twice your age. I’m heavier than I’ve ever been, and I’m happy. I’m comfortable in my skin. There’s things about myself I want to change, but I am living my life and I’m enjoying my life. And you need to not do this to yourself. And also, you have this little girl over here who’s watching everything you do. And what do you want to teach her? Do you want to teach her to love herself or to look at every flaw?’”

Yearwood realized in that moment that the song’s message is one that is so important for everyone who struggles with their own self-esteem.

“I said, ‘You got this baby,’” Yearwood said. “I’m like, ‘Do you hear me?’ I made her look me in the eye. And Bryan Moore, my social media guy, he’s taking pictures, he’s over there crying. And I don’t know what happened to me. But I felt like maybe this is a bigger conversation than, ‘I like your song”, because it is a song … just about embracing whoever you are, whatever that looks like. And then after that, everybody that came through, especially the girls and the women, I thought, we’re so hard on ourselves. And we could be so much kinder to everybody if we’re kinder to ourselves first. So maybe this is a bigger story than a cool song.”

Yearwood is pleasantly surprised by the success of “Every Girl in This Town,” which she never imagined would be a hit at radio.

“Well first of all, I’m a woman, I’m 54,” Yearwood told PopCulture.com earlier this week. “Two things stacked against me. I think that we were having this conversation about how hard it is for women to get played on the radio right now, and that’s young women. I’m watching my friend Kelsea Ballerini have 18 months between a No. 1 record, and it’s just harder and harder. I’m watching these young girls who should be flying up the charts having trouble, so I just didn’t have any expectation for myself.

“And I guess because of that,” she added, “the fact that it’s doing well on the charts, is really kind of icing on the cake for me. I’m just really enjoying myself.”

Photo Credit: Getty / John Shearer