Country singer Karen Waldrup says her faith carried her through the worst season of her life, a painful divorce she weathered while recording some of the most personal music of her career.
Waldrup, a Louisiana native and Nashville-based singer-songwriter who finished in the top five on Season 25 of NBC's "The Voice," opened up to Fox News Digital about the collapse of her marriage, the spiritual discipline that kept her standing, and the new single she recorded on what she called the toughest day she has ever spent in a studio.
The interview arrives alongside the release of her single "Just in Case," which dropped Friday, September 18. Waldrup described the fall of 2025 as the period when the weight of her divorce hit hardest, and when she turned to Scripture with an intensity she had never practiced before.
Waldrup did not share the name of her former spouse or the legal details of the split. What she did share was a picture of raw dependence on God during the months when her marriage fell apart.
"I was actually sleeping with my Bible every single night, in the bed with me at night. I was waking up every morning, opening my scripture and reading it. My faith was definitely the foundation of what got me through that."
She also described a deliberate strategy for protecting her emotional health: a short list of six confidants, God plus five trusted friends, who she allowed into the hardest conversations. Everyone else got kept at arm's length.
"Sometimes when you're going through something like a divorce, everyone has their opinions. Everyone has all these different things that people want to say. And so I found that was a really helpful thing."
Her advice was practical and plainspoken. Rather than absorbing the opinions of fifty people, she said, she narrowed her world to the five voices that made her believe she would survive it.
Waldrup is far from the only public figure to face a marriage ending in the spotlight. Lori Loughlin recently filed to end her nearly 30-year marriage, a reminder that no amount of fame or longevity guarantees a union will hold.
Waldrup did not stop working when her personal life collapsed. She was in the middle of recording a new album during the fall of 2025, and one session in particular tested her resolve.
"The day that I tracked that song was a tough day. It was the toughest day that I've ever been in the studio. And I didn't know if it was even going to come out good because I felt so broken."
The song was "Keeping the Faith," which Waldrup called one of her favorites she has ever been part of. She said the brokenness she carried into the booth ended up serving the track rather than sinking it.
"I think you can kind of hear it in the vocal, the desperation of keeping the faith and saying, 'Hey, you know what, no matter what goes on, you got to get back up and go, you got it. Pick it up. You got to keep the faith.'"
She pointed to a lyric in the bridge, "There's a reason I'm still standing here stronger than I ever knew", as a line that captured what the experience ultimately taught her.
Country music has seen its share of high-profile divorces shake the industry in recent months. Waldrup's approach, channeling grief directly into her recordings rather than retreating from the public eye, stands apart from how many artists handle similar crises.
Waldrup said she drew strength from watching how other country legends handled personal loss without walking away from their audiences. She named Dolly Parton and Reba McEntire as examples of performers who kept showing up even when life dealt them devastating blows.
"I look at people like Dolly Parton or Reba [McEntire], and I think about how many times they had somebody pass away, and they had to get back up on stage, or they had their mom in the hospital or something, and they had to go play a show."
For Waldrup, the lesson was simple: the work does not wait for the grief to pass. She had commitments, and she honored them.
In February, Waldrup publicly acknowledged the divorce for the first time in a Facebook post to her fans. She wrote that after "a lot of time, reflection and prayer," she was ready to share that her marriage had ended. She asked for kindness and expressed gratitude for the grace around her.
Waldrup's resilience did not appear overnight. Before the split, she had already built a career that included seven studio albums, more than fifty songs released worldwide, performances in over fifteen countries, and twelve Nashville Industry Music Awards. She is a BMI songwriter and a member of both the Recording Academy and the Country Music Association.
Public figures navigating divorce often face scrutiny that compounds the personal pain. Kristi Noem's recent divorce filing drew intense media coverage, a dynamic Waldrup seems to have anticipated by controlling who she confided in and when she went public.
Waldrup framed her music career not as a vehicle for personal fame but as something she owes to God. She said she does not need to be important, she needs to do the work she was given a voice to do.
"He gave me this voice. And we're talking about faith, we're talking about music, we're talking about joy, we're talking about friendship, and about love, or the lack thereof."
She added that she feels she is living God's purpose for her life, and that part of that purpose is to inspire others who are walking through their own difficult seasons.
Waldrup did not sugarcoat the loss. She acknowledged that the dream of a lifelong marriage, the thing most people walk into a church hoping to build, was gone. But she was direct about what replaced it.
"After you come out of it, I truly believe that you are stronger. People are stronger from this experience."
Her description of the fall of 2025 was not a story about bitterness or blame. It was a story about a woman who grabbed the nearest anchor she could find, her Bible, her faith, and five people who believed in her, and held on until the worst passed.
In a culture that treats marriage as disposable and faith as a punchline, a woman who pulled her Bible into bed and let Scripture hold her together is worth listening to.
