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Ariana Grande vs Carrie Underwood wasn’t on our 2025 bingo card, but we’ll take it!
Infamously, the country singer agreed to sing at Trump’s inauguration.
While it wasn’t the worst thing to happen on Monday, it also didn’t go as planned. Underwood ended up singing a capella.
And it appears that one of the greatest voices on the planet is shading her over doing a less-than-impressive job.
When Carrie Underwood sang ‘America The Beautiful,’ she sang a capella
In a moment that seemed like heavy-handed symbolism for Donald Trump retaking power, the music for America The Beautiful did not play.
Carrie Underwood sang the song using only her own voice (and a microphone), improvising the a capella performance when it was clear that the equipment would not be a quick fix.
Numerous political figures attended the inauguration, including (now former) Vice President Kamala Harris. And some on social media believed (or merely projected their own opinions) that she did not find Underwood’s rendition to be impressive.
“Kamala Harris evoking Coco Montrese (“Girl, find the note”) watching Carrie Underwood at today’s chilling Inauguration,” Instagram user @evanrosskatz captioned a post.
Coco Montrese is an extremely well-known drag performer, and the quote about the note is from RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 2. The catty post is roasting Carrie Underwood’s singing.
Social media users quickly noticed that Ariana Grande had given the post a “like.” (We here at THG would like to note that Ariana has since rescinded the “like” after it gained attention, though her brother’s like remains up)
Was Ariana Grande indirectly insulting Carrie Underwood?
The post itself was not shade, but a direct read — that is to say, an insult aimed at Carrie Underwood.
However, liking a post falls into a gray area (sometimes). It is even possible to accidentally double-tap an Instagram photo. Additionally, some people use social media likes as a bookmark function — to come back to later.
Most of the time, obviously, a “like” is close enough to an endorsement that celebrities know that their likes can become a scandal. Is that what happened here?
Comment after comment on a post that did not mention Ariana at all read things like “Ariana liked this.”
Many of these included laughter or praise for Grande. Others simply peppered Carrie Underwood with insults.
However, other commenters pulled the “regardless of politics” card to compliment Underwood’s a capella rendition of America The Beautiful.
Some praised her voice, while others acknowledged that she made a good effort under less than ideal circumstances.
Did she actually do a terrible job?
Music is subjective. So are singers. There are people who think that Ariana Grande doesn’t have an amazing singing voice. (They’re wrong, of course, but that’s beside the point)
The actual point is that this isn’t really about whether or not Carrie Underwood did a “good job” or even what Ariana Grande thinks of her singing. It probably has more to do with people expressing disgust for her and other artists who agreed to play for Trump’s inauguration.
That doesn’t mean that it’s unfair criticism of Underwood’s performance. Not to mention that morality arguably matters much more than vocal range or remaining on-key. But we can acknowledge that this conversation was never just about a country singer’s voice.
Ariana Grande Seemingly Shades Carrie Underwood Over A Capella Inauguration Improv: … was originally published on The Hollywood Gossip.