Watch: Kacey Musgraves, Miranda Lambert Detail Feud With Honest Single “Horses and Divorces”
Miranda Lambert is looking back at the industry that built her.
The “House That Built Me” singer reflected on the early days of her country music career and how she and Carrie Underwood were among the few female artists who were able to find continued success.
“In the 2010 era, it was like there were no females at all,” Lambert said on the Oct. 1 episode of the Popcastpodcast. “Carrie Underwood and I made it through pretty much a solid, at least, seven years of only guy artists coming out of country music. It’s like, ‘Wow, this is really off-kilter a little bit.’”
As the Grammy winner now sees it, “We should get a ribbon for surviving that. That was a hard time, honestly.”
But it wasn’t just the fact that so few women were able to rise through the ranks of a male-dominated industry. Lambert also said she and Underwood were effectively kept apart.
“Carrie and I went to each other’s residencies in Vegas, and it was a really cool bonding moment,” the 42-year-old continued. “We had never seen each other. You know why? There were only two girls for so long. We weren’t playing the same shows ever.”
She added, “It was kind of crazy that just three years ago, we finally saw each other’s show for the first time,” she added about Underwood’s Las Vegas residency.
Nowadays, though, Lambert is excited to see country singers like Ella Langley and Megan Mulroney dominate the charts because “the power now is with the fans” thanks to streaming platforms and social media.
Eric McCandless/Disney via Getty Images
“Now I feel like it’s really balanced, I really do,” she shared. “It’s gotten so much better and I’m so thankful that there’s room for a crowd now. Everybody has something different. I feel like all the voices can be heard, all the messages can be heard. You don’t have to love them all, but at least there’s a way to hear them. And then you decide.”
And Lambert—who tied the knot with Brendan McLoughlin in 2019—is grateful she can use her experience to be a mentor to rising stars.
“I didn’t really have that person, like a female artist, that had been through the whole thing that I was,” she said. “You don’t really know how to answer those questions or give advice if you didn’t actually live it. And so I’m trying to be for people what I didn’t have.”
For a look back at Lambert in recent years, including her relationship with McLoughlin, keep reading…
Photo by John Shearer/WireImage
John Shearer/ACMA2019/Getty Images for ACM
John Shearer/WireImage
Instagram / Miranda Lambert
Jason Davis/ACMA2021/Getty Images for ACM
Instagram (@brendanjmcloughlin)
Jason Kempin/Getty Images for CMT
Kevin Mazur/Getty Images for The Recording Academy
Instagram (@brendanjmcloughlin)
For the latest breaking news updates, click here to download the E! News App
