What Happened To Carrie Underwood’s Face? Her Major 2017 Accident

On January 20, Carrie Underwood is scheduled to perform at the inauguration of Donald Trump, putting the Grammy Award winner front and center.

Last week, the 41-year-old called for “unity” in a statement about her performance of “America the Beautiful.”

“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,” she.shared a statement with The New York Times. “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.”

But with all those close-ups on Carrie’s face during the performance, you might remember the major accident she experienced back in 2017. Here’s what she’s shared about that, plus how she’s doing now.

What happened to Carrie Underwood’s face?

There’s a bit of mystery surrounding this, but Carrie has shared a few things about her facial accident.

In November of that year, Carrie revealed that she broke her wrist after falling outside her home. She later shared that she needed stitches in her face from the fall, suggesting that her injuries were extensive.

“There is also another part of the story that I haven’t been ready to talk about, since I have still been living it and there has been much uncertainty as to how things will end up,” she wrote in a note to her fans, per Entertainment Tonight. “It’s crazy how a freak random accident can change your life.”

Carrie said that she “somehow managed to injure my face as well,” in addition to breaking her wrist in the fall.

“I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told [her husband] Mike that he had put between 40 and 50 stitches in,” she said.

At the time, Carrie said she was healing but “not quite looking the same.” After that, Carrie kept her face hidden from the public for months.

How did Carrie Underwood’s accident happen?

In 2018, Carrie shared that she had her accident when she went to take her dogs out for a quick walk at night.

“I was taking the dogs out to go pee one last time, and I just—I tripped,” she said on iHeartRadio’s The Bobby Bones Show. “There was one step, and I didn’t let go of the leashes! Priorities! So that’s why my left hand’s fine. But I went to catch myself and I just missed a step.”

Originally, Carrie just thought she’d hurt her lip. “Then I walked inside and took the dog leashes off and took my coat off and went to go survey the damage and was like, ‘Oh, no!’” she continued. “I’m acting very calm about it now, but … it wasn’t pretty. I chipped my tooth but it was just my skin, thank the Lord. Stitches and all that stuff.”

Carrie said she was “nervous” about the healing process, too. “I was at a point where I didn’t know how things were going to end up,” she said. “I didn’t know what was going to go on. I didn’t know what it was going to heal like… you just don’t know how things are going to heal or end up.”

Why did Carrie Underwood have to get surgery?

While there were rumors that Carrie’s facial accident was a cover for plastic surgery, that’s not the case.

“I’m on some magazine every other week for something crazy. It’s a little sad because the truth is just as interesting,” she told Redbook in 2018. “I wish I’d gotten some awesome plastic surgery to make this [scar] look better.”

The stitches even caused Carrie to have trouble with her singing. “I had stitches inside my mouth, outside my mouth. It was physically impossible,” she told Vulture in 2018.

When she eventually returned to the studio, Carrie called singing “a mind game.”

“‘Do I sound the same? Is my diction the same? Does my mouth move the same as it did before?’ I would sing something and then look at David [Garcia, a writer-producer on her album] and be like, ‘Did that all come out clearly?’” Carrie said, adding that she initially had difficult saying words with “m’s and b’s and p’s.”

Where is the scar on Carrie Underwood’s face?

Carrie has a scar above her lip. While it’s not usually visible when she’s wearing makeup, it could be seen when she shared a closeup selfie from her “Love Wins” video on Instagram in October 2018.

How is Carrie Underwood doing now?

Carrie seems to be doing fine now. She hasn’t publicly referenced her accident in years and seems to have healed well.