Country trailblazer! Mickey Guyton will take the stage at Super Bowl LVI to sing the national anthem on Sunday, February 13 — and she has a pretty personal connection to the song.
The “Black Like Me” singer, 38, started dreaming about becoming a country artist after she saw LeAnn Rimes perform “The Star-Spangled Banner” at a Texas Rangers baseball game. Guyton was 9 at the time, while the Masked Singer winner, now 39, was 10.
“Seeing someone who was young like me sound like a grown woman — I was like, ‘I can do that!’” the Texas native told The New Yorker in June 2021. “And I really could.”
After Guyton announced her Super Bowl gig via Instagram earlier this month, her childhood inspiration chimed in to offer her congratulations. “So freaking proud of YOU,” Rimes commented on the post.
The Grammy nominee, for her part, recalled “freaking out” when she heard that she’d be singing at the NFL championship. “I think that everybody would love to perform at the Super Bowl at some point or another,” she told Entertainment Tonight on Tuesday, February 8. “I just never thought it was a possibility for me. I always just enjoyed watching the national anthem. I sang the national anthem at my high school at every basketball game that we had.”
Though Guyton is now earning tons of critical acclaim, it took her nearly a decade to get her debut album released. In addition to facing racism and sexism in the country music industry, the “Remember Her Name” singer said she initially tried too hard to be something she wasn’t.
“I started looking back at these pictures and videos and I was trying to be this girl next door that everyone could relate to, that everyone could feel safe and comfortable around,” she told CNN in December 2020. “I was hiding a side of myself in plain sight.”
In June 2020, Guyton released “Black Like Me,” the song that finally helped her break through to a wider audience. The single debuted amid widespread protests over the murder of George Floyd after its original release date was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic.
“There’s tears of joy, tears of sadness,” the “Heaven Down Here” singer told Rolling Stone of the song’s success at the time. “There’s a guilt that I’m feeling. I keep thinking, ‘I don’t deserve this.’ There’s also guilt when I see the pain other people are feeling as their eyes open and see the oppression that I’ve experienced, having to see that pain in them as I’m talking about it. It’s all so heavy.”
Keep scrolling to learn more about Guyton:
In 2020, Guyton became the first Black woman ever nominated in the Best Country Solo Performance category for "Black Like Me." That same year, she became the first Black female artist to perform at the Academy of Country Music Awards, which she later cohosted with Keith Urban in 2021. (That also made her the first Black woman to host the ceremony.) Jay L Clendenin/Los Angeles
Guyton and her husband, Grant Savoy, welcomed son Grayson in February 2021. Five months after his birth, the tot received a special gift from another country superstar: Carrie Underwood. "I was having a rough day when this package showed up in my mail parcel. I opened it to find out @carrieunderwood got my baby a piano!" Guyton wrote via Instagram in July 2021. "Thank you from the bottom of my (and Gray’s) heart. To watch him light up as he plays is the heart explosion I didn’t know I needed." Courtesy of Mickey Guyton/Instagram
Guyton regularly shares screenshots of racist messages she receives via social media. "This is what I see in my mentions on a daily basis," she wrote via Instagram on Wednesday, February 9, in response to a post about her Super Bowl gig. "It never stops. But guess what. I will never stop." Kristin Callahan/Shutterstock
Guyton auditioned for season 7 of American Idol, which aired in 2008. She made the top 50 but only appeared on camera briefly. JASON SZENES/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
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