Ella Langley is arguably one of the most successful country artists right now, but that fame is coming with a price. Langley is celebrating “Choosin’ Texas” setting a new record as it spends its 23rd week in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. She also has a Top 10 single with “Loving Life Again” and is the most nominated artist heading into the CMA Awards, with a total of nine nominations.
Although she is grateful for her success, the Alabama native is still learning to live life in the public eye.
“Growing up in a small town, this is saying a lot. I don’t think I’ve ever had more opinions on myself in my life than I have in this last year,” Langley said during a recent show. “The way I look, the way I speak, the way I dress, the way I move, the way I sing, the way I write. And at first it bothered me. I won’t even lie. At first I was like, what am I going to do about this? I don’t know. If this is what I’m signing up to do, I don’t know about this. I signed up to sing music, and I love to do what I do, but if this is what it’s going to be the whole entire time. … I don’t know if I’m strong enough for this.”
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How Ella Langley Is Learning to Accept Her Celebrity Status
Fortunately, Langley has found a way to make peace with being a celebrity, even if it comes with a lot of criticism, by looking at how far she has already come.
“But then I really got to think about it. And I started to think about the girl that they’re kind of picking on, is the girl that got me where I’m sitting here today,” Langley reflects. “That’s the girl that rode in the 15-passenger van night after night after night. She rode in a Honda Accord night after night after night, chasing her dream, living on bar food, living on tip jar money. She didn’t have anything but a dream, and the ability to get up and do it every single day. So I’m going to tell you right now, I am proud of that girl that everybody seems to be picking on a little bit.”
The Story Behind “Loving Life Again” by Ella Langley
Langley wrote “Loving Life Again” with Ernest Smith and Devin Dawson, after taking some time away from touring to focus on her mental health.
“‘Loving Life Again’ is one of those songs that I wrote almost because I needed to,” Langley says in a video shared on social media. “Obviously, last year, I just kind of lost my mind a little bit. My imposter syndrome kicked in, and my life was moving faster than ever. All my dreams were coming true, but I felt sad for some reason. Just that in itself was frustrating. So I kind of lost myself a little bit last year, and that was tough, because all of these amazing things were happening in my life.”
Langley concedes she had a lot to be happy about, but that did little to help her at the moment, when life felt like it was spinning out of control.
“I never canceled anything, maybe one or two shows the whole time. I ended up canceling two weeks’ worth,” Langley recalls. “So I did that; I came back [home]. I closed on my first house in Alabama, right around the same time, and I really just got to be back home with my family. I got to grow my relationship with my faith.
“When I looked in the mirror, I looked like myself again by the end of those two weeks,” she adds. “I was hanging out with Ernest. He asked, ‘Well, how you doing?’ And I kind of just looked at him and was like, ‘It’s like I’m back to loving life again.’”
Photo Credit: CMA / Acacia Evans