What Happened To Country Music Star Gretchen Wilson?

Gretchen Wilson's 2004 hit "Redneck Woman" took the music scene by storm. The smash celebrated hallmarks of good ol' Southern living, with Wilson taking pride in lyrics like "I ain't no high-class broad" and "I say 'hey y'all' and 'yee-haw!'" The song was a hi on pop radio as well as country, crossing over thanks to its infectiousness and infinitely quotable lyrics.

"Radio was like, 'Who is this white trash hillbilly chick coming at us with 13 cuss words in the first song?'" Wilson recalled in a later interview with Billboard. She remembered pointing out that plenty of men had country hits with curse words, too, and recalled the way female fans passionately clung to the image she represented as a result. "They would show up and they would have homemade t-shirts that said, 'Redneck Girl,' 'Redneck Woman' and 'Redneck Grandma' on them — representing three generations, sometimes four. It did feel very validating."

"Redneck Woman" was by far Wilson's biggest hit, though she did manage several others. After her early success, her career slowed down. While Wilson remained a presence — albeit a smaller one — in the country music scene in the years since, a series of scandals and difficult headlines came to define her presence in pop culture at large. She's dealt with the law through both an arrest and a lawsuit, campaigned for Republican presidents, and even attempted a comeback through reality television.

Gretchen Wilson's debut album "Here For The Party" didn't just spawn "Redneck Woman;" the album's title track and album itself did well too. Although Wilson was a brand new artist, "Here For The Party" debuted at No. 2 on the charts, becoming the biggest debut week for a new country artist ever.

Because of her instant smash success, Wilson's label rushed out a sophomore album, "All Jacked Up," in 2005. That album led to several hit singles, including the title track and "Politically Uncorrect." Wilson told Songwriter Universe that she and her collaborators often wrote songs by coming up with their titles first, realizing they had gold when they came up with phrases like "One Bud Wiser" and "When It Rains, I Pour." She mused, "It's just mind-boggling that no one has written it before. Songwriters just rack their brains trying to find that catch phrase. How those two titles had never been written ... I just don't get it."

Those first two albums were followed up by 2007's "One Of The Boys," a year before Katy Perry released "I Kissed A Girl" on her debut album. Wilson's album contained more contemplative songs, and it arrived alongside the book "Redneck Woman: Stories From My Life." Wilson joked to the Associated Press, "Management kept coming to me with book offers and movie offers, and I thought if I do this book they'll leave me alone on the movie offers for a while."

Part of what made Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" so inescapable was its authenticity. You could tell that this song had been written and was being performed by someone who had lived it, and Wilson eventually opened up to fans about her difficult upbringing. In her book by the same name, she detailed a difficult childhood that included dropping out of high school in ninth grade.

In 2007, however, Wilson decided to change that. She was a mother by then, and she told The Tennessean (via People) that she realized she needed to complete her education in order to help her daughter through her own. "I don't want to be the dummy that says, 'I don't know how to do that.' And I don't want her to think you can be this successful without an education. It's something I should have done a long time ago and now I can file it away."

Still, Wilson acknowledged that her experience with education had given her a certain drive to succeed that she wouldn't have had otherwise. "I don't think I'd be where I'm at today if I had stayed in school," she told the outlet (via The Boot). "I would have never followed the path that I followed. I may have been in the music business, but I don't think I would have been an artist. I don't think I'd have been pushy enough." In 2008, Wilson officially graduated at 34 years old.

In 2009, Gretchen Wilson took control of her career into her own hands. Her relationship with her record label had deteriorated, and she'd tried to get out of the contract to no avail. Before too long, though, the label allowed her to go. "I felt like I was about to hit the bottom and God reached down and put his hand on me and said, 'Alright, I can see how much you can take now. Let's give a little back,'" she told The Nashville Scene (via Great American Country). As a result, alongside the release of "Work Hard, Play Harder" — the lead single from her fourth album, "I Got Your Country Right Here" – Wilson launched Redneck Records. The label was a partnership with Sony Music Entertainment, but it allowed Wilson more control over the way she promoted her music.

"My management and I looked at a lot of different options over the last couple of months, and starting Redneck Records made the most sense to continue the relationships I've built with radio, retail and the fans," Wilson told Music Row. "This is a really exciting time in my life, and I'm looking forward to everyone hearing my new music."

"I Got Your Country Right Here" received positive reviews, but it failed to reach the chart heights of her previous work. Still, she told The Boot that she was happy to gamble on herself. "If I win, I'll be able to dig my ass out of the hole. If I lose," she said, "I lose it all."

As the first album released under her own label, Gretchen Wilson's album "I Got Your Country Right Here" was supposed to mark a new turning point in her career. The lead single, "Work Hard, Play Harder," however, proved to be the start of lots of legal trouble for the country star. The Black Crowes sued Wilson, alleging Wilson had lifted music from their song "Jealous Again."

Before it made it onto the album, "Work Hard, Play Harder' was used in an advertisement for "Saving Grace" in 2007, leading to this lawsuit. Pete Angelus, the manager for the Crowes, told Rolling Stone, "We find the musical verses of Wilson's song to be such an obvious example of copyright infringement that I expect all parties to reach a relatively quick resolution to avoid litigation." They sued not only Wilson but TNT, the network that aired "Saving Grace."

Sure enough, the lawsuit was settled out of court, with Wilson paying to make it go away. Chris and Rich Robinson were given songwriting credits on "Work Hard, Play Harder" — a move that Wilson insisted was purely to get the song ready for release in time. She told The Nashville Scene, "I could have won and kept their names off this song, but it would have been too late to include it on the album had I fought it."

In 2018, after some years of relative obscurity, Gretchen Wilson hit the headlines when she was arrested at an airport in Connecticut. TMZ reported that she'd gotten into an altercation with a fellow passenger over the on-board restroom. When the flight landed, she reportedly insisted on being arrested. The outlet obtained video of the "When I Think About Cheatin'" singer being led through the airport with her hands cuffed behind her back.

Though Wilson refused to give details about what exactly led to the disturbance, she later spoke with Taste of Country about her reaction to the headlines. "I'm saddened by the whole thing. I don't know that I could say — I mean, I'm embarrassed that that situation got to where it was," she said. Without clarifying why she'd been arrested, Wilson said that most of the news was wrong. "People who know me know that I just wanna get it straight. I'm reading all of these headlines and am like, 'Oh gosh, it's so wrong. It's all so wrong!'"

Ever the wisecracker, Wilson couldn't help but make jokes about the tumultuous flight. "Talk about a rough landing," she joked, adding, "It's not funny. It's not a funny situation at all." Ultimately, the charges were dropped after she agreed to donate $500 to charity. If you're worried about avoiding a bathroom-related airplane meltdown yourself, check out our hacks to make your flight so much easier.

In 2019, just a year after her airport arrest, Gretchen Wilson had another run-in with police. After performing at the Las Cruces Country Music Festival in New Mexico, Wilson reportedly got into an altercation with hotel management. In a 911 call obtained by The Las Cruces Sun News, an employee reported receiving a number of noise complaints against the "Here For The Party" star.

When asked to keep it down, Wilson apparently became aggravated. "Her words were, 'I paid for the room, I could care less what people think,'" the employee recounted. Police backed up that story, telling the newspaper, "We helped security remove the guest because they had worn out their welcome."

Wilson, on the other hand, turned to social media to sic her followers on the hotel. "You should all band together to put Hotel Encanto out of business," she tweeted. "They sent police to kick me out in the middle of the night for no reason. I complied." In a follow-up post, she claimed she was simply talking in her room after midnight but acknowledged being approached about the noise. "The hotel informed me that QUIET HOURS started at 10pm," she wrote. "Wrong hotel for 3rd shifters."

Gretchen Wilson is no stranger to wading into the political sphere. In 2008, she campaigned on behalf of John McCain, appearing at multiple rallies alongside Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin. "I love her. It was so heartbreaking [when she lost]," Wilson told The Washington Examiner. "She changed the face and the name of being a redneck. ... There's nothing wrong with being a simple girl."

In 2024, Wilson once again joined the campaign trail on behalf of the Republican nominee, this time campaigning alongside Donald Trump in Wisconsin. She sang for the crowd and gave a speech, sharing how her background gave her a particular insight into the way the country should be run. "My story isn't really all that rare, but the American dream that I have been fortunate enough to find will ... most certainly be lost forever if we do not show up and vote for freedom in November. It is on us. Let's make sure we, the people, do all we can to save our country by voting for President Trump and JD Vance," she said (via The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel).

Speaking with Taste of Country, Wilson clarified her support and said that even though she'd been a crossover artist earlier in her career, she felt that the country music space needed to be less inclusive. "I sometimes feel like in country music," she said, "we're a little like the border — a little too wide open."

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, fans may have noticed that Gretchen Wilson dropped further out of the spotlight. That's because she got a particularly nasty case of the virus early in the pandemic, as she explained to Fox News. "I was one of the very first to get it, and it was a heck of a round. It left me with high blood pressure, shortness of breath, asthma –- all of which I still have -– and it took about two years for me to find the right doctors, cardiologists to get it all sorted, to find the right medicine to get my blood pressure down," she said. Her case of long COVID was so bad, in fact, that she was unable to do simple things around the house.

Her health scares were compounded when Wilson experienced a scary leg injury. She didn't go into detail, but she revealed to the outlet, "I also shattered my leg, and I was in a wheelchair for eight months. So there was a lot that I had to work through."

Rather than open up to her fans about the struggles she was facing, Wilson prided herself on keeping quiet. "I don't get on my phone and go, 'Oh, woe is me and look at me and I am so sad, boohoo,'" she said. "It's just not my personality. So I just stayed away, figured it out." She has indeed been back out there; she was one of the worst-dressed celebs at the 2025 Academy Of Country Music Awards!

Now that Gretchen Wilson has worked through the health issues that kept her out of the spotlight for several years, she's begun to mount a bit of a comeback thanks to the assistance of reality television. In 2025, she won the 13th season of "The Masked Singer," stunning fans when she was unmasked as The Pearl. She told Fox News that she chose to go on the show to see whether her career was well and truly over or if she still had something to offer the music industry. She said, "I don't know of a better opportunity for me to go and try to just see, 'What do I have? Do I have it or is it over, you know?"

Over the course of the season, Wilson sang songs like Lesley Gore's "You Don't Own Me," KT Tunstall's "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree," and "Saving All My Love For You" by Whitney Houston. Singer Andy Grammer — under the mask of a character known as Boogie Woogie, naturally — was hot on her heels, and in fact, Wilson was certain that she was going to lose to the man behind hits like "Honey I'm Good." She told People, "I thought he was just the most amazing singer. In my head, he had won it weeks before."

The upset wasn't one of the most controversial moments in "Masked Singer" history, but Wilson won. "I feel like it's sort of a comeback moment," she reflected. "I'm ready to take on anything."

Gretchen Wilson's win on "The Masked Singer" gave her the confidence to continue on in the reality television space. Shortly after she won the season, CBS announced that Wilson had been hired on to the team of their new reality show "The Road," set to premiere in Fall 2025.

"The Road" is a singing competition that looks to find a tour opener for country superstar Keith Urban. Yes, that's right — we've gone from singing competitions that could once launch the careers of folks like Kelly Clarkson and Carrie Underwood, and now the best we can do is give them an opening slot on someone else's tour. Still, "The Road" also promises to give fans a look at what it's like to live life on the road, playing music night after night to crowds of adoring fans.

That's something Wilson knows, making her a natural fit for the show. In a press release published by Music Row, Wilson reflected on filming the series. "Stepping into the role of 'tour manager' for 'The Road' has allowed me to take everything I've learned over all of my years of touring and pour it right back into these emerging musicians," she said. "Helping them sharpen their talents to capture the attention of these crowds across America, and guiding them through the real and raw grind of life on the road, has been a highlight of my career."