'Bachelor' contestant Carly Waddell chases her first love — being a country star

More than 20 years before she first appeared on "The Bachelor" — or met her future ex-husband on "The Bachelor in Paradise" — Carly Waddell was a little girl in Texas who wanted to be the next LeAnn Rimes.

"When 'Blue' came out, that was so huge," Waddell said wistfully of Rimes' 1994 break-out hit.

So the 8-year-old girl bought the karaoke tape for "Blue." And she listened over and over to Reba McEntire, Trisha Yearwood and Lila McCann. Waddell sang their songs incessantly in her family's suburban Dallas home, hoping to be a country star one day, too.

Nearly three decades later, Waddell — a divorced mother of two in Nashville — finally is chasing that childhood dream. Hard.

In the past few months, Waddell launched a YouTube music channel, released her first three country songs, performed her first Nashville gig and, just this past weekend, sang with Nick Carter at the Schermerhorn, kicking off her stint as opener for the one-time Backstreet Boy.

Almost a million people are following along. Waddell, 37, built an Instagram following of 951,000 during her three stints in TV's "Bachelor" franchise, meeting entrepreneur Evan Bass on her third season as a contestant and marrying him in 2017 on the following season of "Bachelor in Paradise."

What Waddell and Bass didn't know during that wedding was that she was pregnant with the first of the couple's two unplanned children.

Doctors had told Waddell for years before then that she wasn't capable of having children, she said. Bass already had children from a previous relationship and didn't want more, Waddell said. The first pregnancy was the beginning of the end for her marriage, she said.

"We never had a foundation, and we never could blend his life with ours," Waddell said. "I walked into something that was a lot. I never had children, I never had to deal with an ex-wife, and I had no support until my parents moved here."

Then again, Waddell has dealt with twists and turns for most of her life.

Her brother got on TV first

Yes, she wanted to be a country star when she was little. But she found more opportunities to star in musical theater in high school, so she got into the prestigious Tisch School of the Arts at New York University.

There, she got overwhelmed by the demands of the program and the intensity of her classmates. She transferred to be with some friends from high school at the University of Oklahoma's theater program.

But she got bored with the small town and frustrated when program administrators wouldn't let her study guitar. So she quit and started doing theater in Savannah, Georgia, which led her to performing on cruise ships.

After a few years of that, in probably the strangest twist so far in her life, her oil fields-working brother, Zak, got cast to be a contestant on ABC's "The Bachelorette." Waddell met some show producers through that, sparking her three-season reality TV show career.

In the middle of that whirlwind, never having fully given up her country-star dreams, Waddell moved to Nashville: "Because that's where music lives."

A year or so after Waddell and her husband split, a flip switched inside of her — she needed to pursue music full time.

Some negative thoughts floated through her head. She's too old. She has kids now. Her window of opportunity is closed.

"Then I was like, f... it. Being a single mom, I figured out how to do all this stuff, give the kids baths, make them lunches, bring them to school," Waddell said.

"There was this moment, like, if I could do this all for them, what am I doing, what can I do, for myself? I have so much to say as a woman, and I want to teach my children, however old you are, however divorced you are, you can still do the things you want to do."

Waddell wrote songs, found musical collaborators and this past spring performed at the private Soho House Nashville.

"I thought I’d be scared, but I was so comfortable. [Audience members] were all very much listening, and one song, 'Drinking Game,' was a crowd favorite," she said. "It was so fun, and I thought, I want more of that. This had to keep going."

She since released three songs on YouTube, found her way onto the Nick Carter tour and has plans to release a country EP early next year.

"I want all the things," she said. "You can do the dream you always had with all of the past you have, at whatever age you are."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384.

Carly's Nashville faves — and her new man

Favorite restaurants:

1. Mitchell's Deli in East Nashville

2. The Pharmacy Burger Parlor and Beer Garden in East Nashville

3. Bob's Steak & Chop House, downtown

Favorite place to take the kids:

1. The playground at BoomBozz Craft Pizza and Taphouse in East Nashville

2. We Rock the Spectrum Kid's Gym in Madison

Her new man:

A lawyer she's choosing not to name. He owns his own firm. They've been dating since June. She saw him on TV, thought he was cute and, she said, "I slid into his DMs." Her kids love him.

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Carly Waddell from 'Bachelor' chases first love — being a country star