Carrie Underwood ‘honored’ to perform at Trump inauguration: ‘I love our country’

Carrie Underwood will perform at President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on Jan. 20 at the Capitol in Washington, D.C. The new American Idol judge will sing “America the Beautiful,” Yahoo Entertainment can confirm.

“I love our country and am honored to have been asked to sing at the inauguration and to be a small part of this historic event,” Underwood said in a statement. “I am humbled to answer the call at a time when we must all come together in the spirit of unity and looking to the future.”

Underwood has publicly been apolitical throughout her decades-long career.

“I feel like more people try to pin me places politically,” she told the Guardian in 2019. “I try to stay far out of politics if possible, at least in public, because nobody wins. It’s crazy. Everybody tries to sum everything up and put a bow on it, like it’s black and white. And it’s not like that.”

The Oklahoma native gave an example about the public reaction to her 2018 song “The Bullet.”

“Immediately people said, ‘Oh, you have a song about gun control,'” she told the outlet. “It was more about the lives that were changed by something terrible happening. And it does kind of bug me when people take a song or take something I said and try to pigeonhole or force me to pick a side or something. It’s a discussion — a long discussion.”

Underwood will be joined by the Armed Forces Choir and the United States Naval Academy Glee Club for her performance. The moment will happen after Vice President-elect JD Vance takes his oath of office and right before Trump is sworn in.

Underwood is by far the biggest star Trump has courted yet. At his 2017 inauguration, there was a long list of celebrities who declined to participate including Elton John, Andrea Bocelli, Celine Dion and David Foster.