Mickey Guyton is reflecting on what she calls “one of the proudest moments” of her career.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE to celebrate Black History Month, the country music star, 41, recounted the incredibly “empowering” experience of taking the stage with Keith Urban — while pregnant — at the 2020 ACM Awards to sing “What Are You Going to Tell Her?” Urban, 57, accompanied her on piano at the Grand Ole Opry House venue as she belted out lyrics addressing the injustices that women, particularly those of color, face.
“That was 100% one of my most proudest moments,” Guyton says of her duet with Urban. “The song, first of all, singing about the oppression of women, as I’m standing on that stage, being pregnant, in a very heavily conservative genre — I think that was definitely a very proud moment of mine.”
At the time, Guyton was expecting her son Grayson, now 3, whom she shares with husband Grant Savoy. She remembers how a number of big successes happened for her while she was pregnant, despite having “been taught as women that pregnancy stifles careers.”
“Like, ‘Don’t get pregnant. Don’t have relationships. Don’t be married,’ ” the “House on Fire” singer explains.
“And I was all of those things. And that’s when success started happening for me,” she continues. “That was really empowering. Guess what? That just, sorry, but I’m pregnant, and I’m up on the stage still succeeding in spite of what you may think of what a woman should do as a career woman.”
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Guyton went on to note that her career really “changed” and bloomed when she began tackling important issues such as discrimination. “I’ve been singing in the genre for so long, trying to chase these light topics and experiences. My life does not fill that light. Country music is three chords in the truth, so I needed to write about my experiences and what was happening to me right now, which is as a Black woman living in America,” she explains.
She adds: “I was also a Black woman singing country music in a genre that is very, very pro-male. It’s extremely hard, and it was important for me to just sing about that.”
Elsewhere in the conversation, Guyton opened up about the “unreal” experience of recently getting an opportunity to perform with Ringo Starr. She was among several other music stars — including Sheryl Crow and Jack White — who joined the Beatles legend onstage at one of his sold-out shows at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium earlier this month.
“That was not on my Bingo card, for sure. It was just not at all what I thought was going to happen to me,” she says of the pinch-me moment. “It was just unreal, to be honest, like unreal. I never would’ve thought that would happen to me.”
Guyton says being among such “extremely talented musicians” and sharing a stage with Starr, 84, was a career highlight that she “really, really needed.”
“[Starr] really is about peace and love, and that’s what it felt like, and I really needed that,” she notes.
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