Music News

With CMA and ACM Awards wins to her credit — not to mention chart-topping songs including “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” and “I Hope You’re Happy Now” — Grand Ole Opry member Carly Pearce has been steadily adding accolades since she released her debut song, her first Country Airplay chart-topper “Every Little Thing,” in 2017.

On Friday (Jan. 20), Pearce shared a video with fans and revealed a wild story from an early radio tour, when Pearce was crisscrossing the country to promote her debut single and she had a run-in with the police.

“I’m going to tell you about the time that I had a warrant out for my arrest,” she began.

While traveling on the radio tour, her flight was canceled, forcing Pearce and her band to have to rent a car and drive to where they were playing the next day.

“I was driving through the great state, my home state of Kentucky and I didn’t realize the speed limit went very quickly from like 70 to 35 — and let’s just be real, I was already going, um, 85,” she recalled.

A cop pulled her over and gave her a ticket. “I could tell he was, like, really annoyed, but we had to get to the show, so I didn’t look at the speeding ticket until I got to the venue a few hours later and realized I had a reckless driving ticket. So I paid the ticket and thought nothing of it — and then got a call that there was a warrant out for my arrest, because I did not go to traffic school or pay the full amount of my ticket, because I didn’t realize it’s a big offense if you are reckless driving.”

With a deep sigh, she continued, telling fans that there was one bright side to the ordeal.

“You’re never gonna believe it, but the cop was a country fan, and I bartered my way to pay the ticket and give him tickets to my show — and he dropped the warrant, or the charge or whatever you want to call it. That police officer in Kentucky, thank you. You can come to a show anytime. But yeah, I’m kind of bad,” she says, with a mischievous gleam in her eyes.

The video ends with another video clip of Pearce — this time, seemingly ready to head onstage — as she continues, “The moral of the story, y’all, is be aware of the speed limits where you are going and it pays to be a country singer sometimes,” she added with a wink and a smile.

Pearce is nominated for a Grammy leading into next month’s awards show, earning a nod for best country duo/group performance for “Never Wanted to Be That Girl” with Ashley McBryde. She is opening shows on Blake Shelton’s Back to the Honky Tonk tour.