(NEXSTAR) – The country singer who admitted to being drunk while singing “The Star-Spangled Banner” at 2024’s MLB Home Run Derby is opening up about her time as “America’s punching bag.”
Ingrid Andress, a four-time Grammy nominee, went viral shortly after her July rendition of the national anthem was blasted by critics.
“I’m so sorry, I’m sure Ingrid Andress is a wonderful person, but that was one of the worst national anthems I think I’ve ever heard in my whole life,” Sports Illustrated writer Alex Carr posted on X the following day.
Andress addressed her critics shortly afterward, explaining on social media that she was drunk during the performance and would be checking into a rehab facility. But during a recent podcast appearance, Andress, 33, claimed she got even more criticism after fessing up.
“For some reason, it felt like I was getting even more hate for saying I was going to rehab,” Andress told Nick Viall, the host of “The Viall Files” podcast, in an episode released this week. “It was like, ‘Oh, you’re blaming it on being drunk when you’re just a bad singer.’”
Andress explained on the podcast that she began abusing alcohol about three months before the Home Run Derby performance, and after parting ways with her longtime manager and breaking up with a boyfriend.
“Within, like, three months I was drinking more than I ever had, ever. And just loved that numbing feeling,” she said.
“It only took global humiliation for me to realize this was a problem,” she later added.
Even after her controversial performance, Andress said she was still so “gone” that she didn’t think she sang poorly. It was only the next day (and after a friend called her) that she realized the issue.
“It’s terrifying that I don’t remember how it went. And then that’s when I called management and I was like, ‘Hey, I need to go, I need to check myself in somewhere. This is not like me, and I feel like I’m at a point where I don’t feel like I can get out of this myself.’”
She also said she was thankful that she wasn’t allowed to have her phone in rehab, which shielded her from some of the backlash.
Andress was nevertheless contacted by some supporters, however: Several female country artists, including Karen Fairchild of Little Big Town and Kelsea Ballerini, reached out to her in the wake of the incident, as did Carlos Santana, who extended an offer to collaborate on a song, she said.
Last week, Andress also delivered yet another version of the national anthem at a Colorado Avalanche game. She later shared the video to Instagram with a caption reading, ‘We’re back baby.”
“This makes me so happy! Who doesn’t love a great comeback story?!” one Instagram user wrote in response to the video. “You are so talented and brave.”
Speaking with Viall on his podcast, Andress admitted that she had previously vowed never to perform the national anthem at another sporting event. But she said she eventually worked up the nerve, in part “to prove to myself I could, and to show people who maybe didn’t know me outside of that, like, that I actually am a singer and I’ve been doing this for a long time.”
When asked why her more recent performance didn’t go as viral as the last one, Andress had a quick answer.
“Because I sound better,” she joked.
Today, Andress said she feels a little less sensitive to criticism, after having “ripped off” the proverbial Band-Aid. She also joked that her performance may have helped bring the country together during a divisive political period in recent U.S. history.
“I know politics was really bubbling, and I feel like there was a lot of angst in general, during that time,” she noted. “So if anything … I’m fine with being America’s punching bag, because for one moment, everyone was united in the fact that that was awful.”
