Country singer Gabby Barrett says the moment faith became her own did not happen beneath stage lights; it happened upstairs in her childhood bedroom, reading what she believes was the Book of Romans.
“From that moment forward, it was just completely undeniable,” Barrett told “The Upload” podcast host Brooke Taylor in an interview. She described the experience as the beginning of a spiritual renewal that changed her marriage, motherhood and career.
Barrett grew up attending Catholic school, where religion was her favorite subject, but she said Scripture did not fully click for her as a child. That changed after she competed on AMERICAN IDOL and began dating musician and fellow contestant Cade Foehner, who gave her a Bible with a prayer written inside.
“I was upstairs in my bedroom in my childhood home and I started reading Romans and it was literally like somebody turned on a switch,” she recalled. Suddenly, she said, she understood what she was reading and wanted to keep reading.
Barrett finished third on the 2018 season of AMERICAN IDOL before her breakout single “I Hope” made her the first woman to top Billboard’s Country Streaming Songs chart with a debut single. The song later spent 25 weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart, giving Barrett the kind of platform she now says she wants to steward carefully.
She and Foehner married in Texas in October 2019 after meeting during season 16 of AMERICAN IDOL. The couple now has three young children, and Barrett said their shared faith gives them somewhere solid to turn when marriage gets difficult.
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“We always run back to the Bible. We always run back to God in the way that he wants the marriage to operate,” she said. She added that returning to those principles keeps the relationship happy and moving forward.
Motherhood brought those beliefs into the family’s daily routine. Barrett said she and Foehner pray with their children before bed and meals, turn on hymns when tempers run short and try to make prayer a familiar part of ordinary family life.
“We try to be really intentional about everything that we do,” Barrett said. That intentionality reaches from the songs she writes and releases to what she wears, how the couple protects their children’s privacy and the way they raise them.
Her family life shows up in the music, too. MusicRow reported that Barrett’s 2024 sophomore album, Chapter & Verse, took its title from both the Bible and the unfolding chapters of her marriage, family and career.
“Our goal, our goal as a unit, right, is to honor Christ with our lives, to be vessels for him, to be salt of the earth,” Barrett said.
Barrett did not pretend that faith makes touring with three children easy. She spoke plainly about hard days, postpartum emotions and the gap between social media’s polished moments and real family life, saying she takes each day as it comes and trusts God’s direction.
When Taylor asked what came next, Barrett mentioned new music, then quickly moved to the prayer behind it.
“Just hoping that we continue to be vessels for Christ, that we play the long game, not the short game,” she said of her prayers for the future.
Near the end of the conversation, Barrett returned to the part of fame she cannot dodge: people are listening.
“I know that He’s given me a big microphone,” she said. The question, she added, is how she will use it.
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