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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 that happened on Monday, it didn’t go as planned either. Underwood ended up singing a capella.
And it looks like one of the biggest voices on the planet is shading her for doing a less than impressive job.
When Carrie Underwood sang ‘America The Beautiful’, she sang a capella
In a moment that seemed heavy-handed symbolism for Donald Trump’s resumption of power, the music to America the Beautiful didn’t play.
Carrie Underwood sang the song with just her own voice (and a microphone) and improvised the a capella performance when it was clear the equipment wasn’t going to be a quick fix.
Numerous political figures attended the inauguration, including (now former) Vice President Kamala Harris. And some on social media believed (or simply projected their own opinions) that she didn’t find Underwood’s rendition impressive.
“Kamala Harris evoking Coco Montrese (‘Girl, Find the Note’) seeing Carrie Underwood at today’s chilly inauguration,” Instagram user @evanrosskatz captioned the photo.
Coco Montrese is an extremely well-known drag performer, and the quote on the note is from RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars Season 2. The cat-like mail toasts Carrie Underwood’s song.
Social media users were quick to note that Ariana Grande had given the post a “like.” (We here at THG would like to note that Ariana has since un-liked after it gained attention, although her brother’s like remains up)
Did Ariana Grande Indirectly Insult Carrie Underwood?
The post itself was not shadow, but a direct one read – that is, an insult directed at Carrie Underwood.
However, likes a record falls into a gray area (sometimes). It’s even possible to accidentally double-tap an Instagram photo. In addition, some people use social media as a bookmarking feature – to return to later.
Most of the time, of course, a “like” is close enough to an endorsement that celebrities know their likes can become a scandal. Is that what happened here?
Comment after comment on a post that didn’t 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 commentators pulled the “regardless of politics” card to compliment Underwood’s a capella rendition America the Beautiful.
Some praised her voice, while others acknowledged that she put in a good effort under less than ideal circumstances.
Did she really do a terrible job?
Music is subjective. So are singers. There are people who think so Ariana Grande doesn’t have a great singing voice. (They’re wrong, of course, but that’s beside the point)
The real point is that this isn’t really about whether Carrie Underwood did a “good job” or what Ariana Grande thinks of her song. It probably has more to do with people expressing disgust at her and other artists who agreed to play at Trump’s inauguration.
That doesn’t mean it’s unfair criticism of Underwood’s performance. Not to mention that morality enough means a lot more than vocal range or staying on-key. But we can recognize that this conversation was never just about a country singer’s voice.