Carrie Underwood addresses rumors her facial injury was a lie to cover up secret plastic surgery

Carrie Underwood’s facial injury last year led to her retreating from the spotlight and the internet going crazy with conspiracy theories. But she returned, some time has passed, and she’s reflecting on what transpired.

For starters, the country superstar, 35, now realizes that the only person who truly thought her facial injury was “gruesome” — the word she used to describe it while locked away in her Tennessee manse over the winter — was her. The rest of the world was like, that’s it?

“Any time someone gets injured, it looks pretty bad in the beginning, and you’re like, ‘What is this going to wind up like?’ You just don’t know,” Underwood told Redbook in the mag’s September cover story. “It was also a perception thing, because I look at myself [now] and I see it quite a bit, but other people are like, ‘I wouldn’t have even noticed.’ Nobody else looks at you as much as you think they do. Nobody notices as much as you think they will, so that’s been nice to learn.”

Underwood was then asked about the online rumors — the biggest being that she hadn’t really hurt herself and was just out of the spotlight recovering from plastic surgery enhancements — and whether they bothered her. “I’m on some magazine every other week for something crazy,” she replied. “It’s a little sad, because the truth is just as interesting. I wish I’d gotten some awesome plastic surgery to make this [scar] look better.”

Underwood said she tries “not to worry too much about” gossip — if only her family could get on board. “My mom will be like, ‘Did you see they are saying this about you?’ And I’ll be like, ‘Mama, I don’t care. I’m just trying to raise my son and live my life,’” said Underwood, who has a 3-year-old son with her husband, Mike Fisher, who plays hockey with the Nashville Predators.

The “Cry Pretty” singer also hinted at other troubles last year that kept her out of the spotlight. “There were some personal things that happened,” she admitted. “And I had the accident and all of that to get through … and just life. Life is full of ups and downs, and I might have had a few more downs than ups last year.”

Another rumor she faced while the injury played out was that her marriage was in trouble, which Fisher denied. But in the Redbook interview, she talked about the future of their family — and whether they had plans to expand it. “I’m 35, so we may have missed our chance to have a big family,” she said. “We always talk about adoption and about doing it when our child or children are a little older. In the meantime, we’re lucky to be a part of organizations that help kids, because our focus right now in our lives is helping as many kids as possible.”

Now feeling “stronger than ever,” or so the magazine proclaims, Underwood shared advice for other women going through issues that may have rocked their confidence. “The first thing I would tell them is that we’re all insecure; that’s just called being human,” she said. “I feel like the most important thing to realize is that even people who seem to be super confident have insecurities that they are dealing with. Honestly, you just do the best you can. Don’t worry about things you can’t change.” Words to live by.

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