Carrie Underwood ‘Feels Good’ to Be Back at ‘American Idol’

Carrie Underwood is happy to be back on the American Idol stage.

The country superstar, who got her start as the winner of season four of the reality singing competition, is returning to her roots Sunday as a mentor for the Top 5 contestants in a Nashville-based episode.

It apparently feels pretty good, based on Underwood’s social media activity over the past 24 hours.

Saturday, the “Cry Pretty” artist posted a photo of the rehearsal stage on Instagram, captioning it, “At [American Idol] rehearsals today!!! So good to be back! Feels like coming home! Don’t forget to tune in tomorrow… ❤️👍🎤”

She also paid tribute to her return to the show on Instagram stories, posting a photo outside her American Idol dressing room, captioning it, “Can’t wait until tomorrow!!!”

The 35-year-old is slowly making her way back to the public eye after stepping out of the spotlight while recovering from a facial and wrist injury.

“I just fell down. I was taking the dogs out to go do their thing and I just got clumsy and I tripped,” she recalled to Sirius XM’s the Highway in April. “I held onto the dog leashes in my left hand and went to catch myself with my right and just missed a step. There’s one lone step. If I had fallen anywhere else, I would have been absolutely fine, but it was because I had to catch myself”

“I thought I just busted my lip when I walked inside,” she continues. “I went to go survey the damage and was like, ‘Oh no!’”

Underwood returned to the stage at the 2018 ACM Awards, singing her new single, “Cry Pretty,” and marking her first time to stand before a crowd since the accident in November.

“I was nervous about music, first and foremost,” said Underwood. “We wanted things to be about the song that night, so we tried to avoid doing other things beforehand, just because I didn’t want to talk about my accident.”

Her album, Cry Pretty, was influenced by the injury and her recovery efforts, she continued.

“It happened right before the holidays, so everyone was already on hiatus anyway, so that was a blessing. But I got to write and I got to record,” she said. “Everything you do has an impact on the music, and everything you go through and live through has an impact on writing. I feel like it maybe, I don’t want to say it ended up being a good thing, but when you write you have more to write about. You’re coming from a different place.”

American Idol airs Sundays at 8 p.m. ET on ABC.

Photo credit: Facebook / Carrie Underwood