Carrie Underwood Makes First Public Appearance Since ‘Gruesome’ Facial Injury on ACM Awards

Carrie Underwood made her first public appearance since suffering an accident at home in November that left her with a broken wrist and 40 to 50 stitches in her face — and on the basis of the performance as well as the photo she posted on Instagram yesterday, we’d never have known she’d been injured. She delivered a powerful performance of “Cry Pretty,” the first single from her forthcoming album, her first for Universal Nashville, which does not yet have a title or a release date.

Wearing sparkles around her eyes in the shape of tears, as she does in the visuals for the single, traces of any injury were not detectable on television. (Variety will post video once it is available.)

The song is a sweeping power ballad that at times is more reminiscent of Guns N’ Roses’s “November Rain” than much of her previous work. In the post, she writes of working with writer/producer David Garcia — who’s worked both with Christian country artists as well as Florida Georgia Line — and said he’s co-producing her forthcoming album with her.

As “Cry Pretty,” “I wrote it with three incredible women: Hillary Lindsey, Liz Rose, and Lori McKenna, who also write under the name Love Junkies,” she wrote. “I joined one of their writing sessions last year to see if we could come up with some magic…and we did! The title refers to when emotions take over and you just can’t hold them back. It really speaks to a lot of things that have happened in the past year and I hope when you hear it, you can relate those feelings to those times in your life. It’s emotional. It’s real. And it ROCKS!”

In a post on her website last week, the singer said her face is “healing pretty nicely” since the accident. “First off, physically, I’m doing pretty darn good these days!,” she wrote. “My wrist is almost back to normal, about 90% there…and the docs say that last 10% will come in time. And my face has been healing pretty nicely as well. I definitely feel more like myself than I have in a while.”

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Carrie Underwood to Perform at ACM Awards in First Public Appearance After 'Gruesome' Accident

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