Carrie Underwood Reflects on Nearly Quitting ‘American Idol’ After Her Top 10 Performance

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Season 23’s Top 10 artists are taking the stage on the upcoming episode of American Idol, so judge Carrie Underwood is reflecting on her own Top 10 performance back in 2005. As part of her Idol to Icon YouTube webseries, Underwood looked back on her performance of Martina McBride‘s “Independence Day,” and shared what she wrote in her diary after the show.

“I don’t know, sometimes I think it would just be easier if I go home,” Underwood admitted in her journal. “But I know I would regret it forever. I just have to remember that I know I’ve got this. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t good. I can so do this. And who cares if the judges don’t like it? I know I do… lol.”

The country singer was blushing as she mocked herself for her confidence and mimicked herself saying, “I know I do!”

She then added, “I love how I started out, like, ‘I don’t know, I just think it’d be easier if I go home,’ and then I just gradually start talking myself up. ‘I would regret it.’ ‘I got this.’ ‘I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t good!’ ‘I can so do this!’ It gets a little more and more ramped up.”

It just goes to show that even someone with Underwood’s level of talent can struggle with confidence sometimes, and if she had gone home, she probably wouldn’t be where she is today! Instead, she stuck it out and went on to win the show.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

“I don’t think I let the ‘win’ scenario really enter my brain until, like, Top 3 or 4. For me, at the time, it was like, there were certain levels you wanted to get to because different things can happen,” Underwood explained. “So, of course, you want to make Top 24, and then it’s like, you want to make Top 12, then you want to make Top 10. There were certain levels you really wanted to get to. Once I got to Top 10, because I was a broadcast journalism major, I was like, ‘Okay, with every step, it’s going to be easier for me to get a job when I get sent home.’ I was very practical in my thinking. Top 10 was a little more of a relaxing stage to be in because it’s like, ‘No matter what happens, this is Top 10. We’re here. And nobody can take that away.'”

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As for her career plans if she didn’t go on to pursue music, Underwood said, “I picked a mass comm[unications] field because I like words, and I like writing stories. I like writing. I was hoping to get into either being on your local news or doing something in that realm — or advertising, something like that.”

American Idol, Season 23, Sundays and Mondays, 8/7c, ABC