{"id":721,"date":"2025-01-31T16:46:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-31T16:46:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=721"},"modified":"2025-01-31T16:46:23","modified_gmt":"2025-01-31T16:46:23","slug":"luke-bryan-had-no-idea-lainey-wilson-was-rejected-by-idol-seven-times-%f0%9f%98%b2-the-crazy-way-their-friendship-started-is-a-whole-story-in-itself-see-it-now-%f0%9f%91%87%f0%9f%91%87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/?p=721","title":{"rendered":"Luke Bryan had no idea Lainey Wilson was rejected by &#8216;Idol&#8217; seven times. \ud83d\ude32 The crazy way their friendship started is a whole story in itself! See it now! \ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47\ud83d\udc47"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Though singer-songwriter\u00a0Lainey Wilson\u00a0has become one of the hottest country stars on the planet, it wasn\u2019t long ago she was striving to get noticed in Nashville and auditioning seven times for\u00a0\u201cAmerican Idol.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/entertainmentnow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/luke-bryan-1.jpg?w=864\" alt=\"Luke Bryan\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"yLWzx9HE\"><\/div>\n<p>Now, nearly four years after finally scoring her\u00a0first Billboard country music hit\u00a0with \u201cThings a Man Oughta Know,\u201d one of the cool twists of fate for Wilson has been the close friendship she\u2019s forged with \u201cIdol\u201d judge\u00a0Luke Bryan, she told CMT\u2019s Cody Alan on January 25, 2025.<\/p>\n<div class=\"0Ai3F5Qv\"><\/div>\n<p>Shortly after performing on the season 21 \u201cIdol\u201d finale with\u00a0Jelly Roll\u00a0in May 2023, Wilson\u00a0told Country Countdown USA, \u201cI finally made it on \u2018American Idol. I tried out 7 times. I took the long way around, but finally made it on \u2018American Idol.\u2019 I never made it through. I never made it past the first round.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But Wilson\u2019s getting last laugh, from\u00a0winning the 2024 Grammy for Best Country Album to her friendship with Bryan, who was shocked to learn the show had passed her up so many times.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-lainey-wilson-says-luke-bryan-will-now-answer-her-calls-at-any-hour\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Lainey Wilson Says Luke Bryan Will Now Answer Her Calls at Any Hour<\/h2>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-instagram wp-block-embed-instagram\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<div id=\"34412392f03a11a8415df047cc6be66c\" class=\"embed_container\">\n<div class=\"lazy-embed lazy-embed--ssr embed-instagram-com lazy-embed--loaded\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DFOu49XOZFs\/\"><iframe id=\"instagram-embed-0\" class=\"instagram-media instagram-media-rendered\" src=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/reel\/DFOu49XOZFs\/embed\/captioned\/?cr=1&amp;v=14&amp;wp=900&amp;rd=https%3A%2F%2Fentertainmentnow.com&amp;rp=%2Famerican-idol%2Fare-luke-bryan-lainey-wilson-friends%2F#%7B%22ci%22%3A0%2C%22os%22%3A9772.40000000596%7D\" height=\"1081\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" data-instgrm-payload-id=\"instagram-media-payload-0\" data-mce-fragment=\"1\" data-origwidth=\"\" data-origheight=\"1081\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Though Wilson never got a callback from \u201cIdol\u201d producers while she was striving to hit it big, she said Bryan will now answer her calls at any time. During an interview on \u201cCMT Hot 20,\u201d as seen in the above clip, she told host Cody Alan that she has forged a special connection with the country superstar.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLuke has become a dear friend of mine, he really has,\u201d Wilson told Alan. \u201cHe\u2019s a cheerleader of mine, and he\u2019s somebody I could go to \u2014 I could call him and it does not matter what time of day and he would answer the phone. He\u2019s a good dude.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over the last several months, the country stars have spent a good deal of time together, first\u00a0co-hosting the 2024 CMA Awards\u00a0with Bryan and Peyton Manning. They were also both part of CBS\u2019\u00a0New Year\u2019s Eve countdown show\u00a0that former \u201cIdol\u201d judge Keith Urban hosted in Nashville, and in mid-January, Wilson was part of Bryan\u2019s\u00a010th annual Crash My Playa music festival in Mexico.<\/p>\n<div class=\"3W2IJgHE\"><\/div>\n<p>But in addition to getting close with Wilson, Bryan has also become good friends with her boyfriend, former NFL player Delvin \u201cDuck\u201d Hodges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI mean, anytime I\u2019ve been around Lainey,\u201d Bryan\u00a0told ABC News Radio in November, \u201cshe\u2019s just kind of one of the boys and one of the girls, you know? She\u2019s just a great person to be around and\u00a0(I\u2019ve started) to spend a little more time with her boyfriend,\u00a0Duck. He and I, we chat a couple of times a week. So, yeah, we\u2019re all family now.\u201d<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"h-luke-bryan-admits-we-don-t-always-get-it-right-on-idol\" class=\"wp-block-heading\">Luke Bryan Admits \u2018We Don\u2019t Always Get It Right\u2019 on \u2018Idol\u2019<\/h2>\n<p>When Bryan, who\u2019s been a judge on \u201cIdol\u201d since 2018, learned that Wilson was rejected seven times by \u201cIdol\u201d producers before her rise to fame, he was shocked.<\/p>\n<p>In November 2023,\u00a0Bryan told Country Countdown USA, \u201cI didn\u2019t know that. That was the first time I heard that, but I\u2019ll go see my producers today and find out\u00a0what happened! I\u2019m glad she didn\u2019t take the \u2018Idol\u2019 letdown to heart. It also shows we don\u2019t always get it right.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Wilson told Country Countdown USA that she also tried out for \u201cThe Voice,\u201d with no success, but insisted, \u201cI\u2019m grateful my story ended the way that it did.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In May 2023, the \u201cHeart Like a Truck\u201d hitmaker\u00a0told People,\u00a0\u201cI\u2019ve known that this is my calling, and there\u2019s nothing else that I want to do, that I can do. I\u2019ve always just been like, \u2018No plan B, this is it.\u2019 I feel like that time that I\u2019ve had to prepare, I don\u2019t know\u2026 If it happened when I wanted it to, I don\u2019t know that I would have been ready.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Though singer-songwriter\u00a0Lainey Wilson\u00a0has become one of the hottest country stars on the planet, it wasn\u2019t long ago she was striving to get noticed in Nashville and auditioning&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":722,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-721","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=721"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":723,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/721\/revisions\/723"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grow48.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}