If there’s a comeback story in the making, it’s Gretchen Wilson. The singer-songwriter just won Season 13 of The Masked Singer, a victory that comes shortly before she appears on the upcoming reality TV talent show, The Road, airing this fall on CBS. Wilson stars in the show alongside Blake Shelton, who executive produces the show with Taylor Sheridan, and Keith Urban.
The 51-year-old is opening up about the past few years, and the struggles she endured to emerge on top.
“So, I got COVID,” Wilson recalls to Fox News. “I was one of the very first to get it, and it was a heck of a round. It left me with high blood pressure, shortness of breath, asthma — all of which I still have. And it took about two years for me to find the right doctors [and] cardiologists to get it all sorted, to find the right medicine to get my blood pressure down. I mean, it was pretty severe. It was bad enough that I couldn’t even do light housework without the blood pressure going up to scary levels.”
As if that wasn’t enough, Wilson also suffered a grueling injury, one that required a lot of recovery time to heal.
“I also shattered my leg, and I was in a wheelchair for eight months. So there was a lot that I had to work through,” Wilson reveals.
While plenty of artists would have posted all of their struggles on social media, the “Redneck Woman” chose to keep them to herself.
“I don’t get on my phone and go, ‘Oh, woe is me and look at me and I am so sad, boohoo,'” Wilson, who recently presented at the 2025 ACM Awards, says. “It’s just not my personality. So I just stayed away, figured it out. Like I said, it took a long time, but I finally got myself into a place where I was like, ‘Okay, I feel like I’m back.'”
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When the opportunity for The Masked Singer came up, Wilson knew it was the right decision for her. While it had the potential to earn her millions of new fans, which it did, it was also a milestone moment for Wilson on a personal level as well.
“When they called and asked … I don’t know of a better opportunity for me to go and try to just see ‘What do I have?'” she reflects. “Do I have it or is it over?’ And it was hard work, but it was so rewarding.
“I gotta say that I don’t think I’d have this kind of pride or this much just want to if I hadn’t done the show,” Wilson adds. “The show really proved to me that I can still do it, that I need to still be doing it, and that I want to still be doing it.”
As for moving forward, Wilson has learned how to give every performance her all, in spite of her health challenges.
“I take two different inhalers every day, and I take a pretty massive beta blocker,” Wilson reveals. “So, I’ve got my tools. I don’t think that I felt any different during the show than I do with my typical touring gigs. It’s probably a little bit harder to do the 75- to 90-minute nonstop, middle of July, Yuma, Arizona show. That’s probably a little bit harder than any given one day on the show.”
Wilson released “Little Miss Runner Up” last year. Find all of Wilson’s music and upcoming shows at GretchenWilson.com.
Photo Credit: ACM / Michael Buckner