Carrie Underwood’s Still ‘Haunted’ by Conversation She Had With Ryan Seacrest 20 Years Ago

It’s been 20 years since Carrie Underwood was a contestant on “American Idol,” but she says she’s still “haunted” by a conversation she had with host Ryan Seacrest on the show.

On April 1, 2025, the “Idol” social media team shared a clip of Underwood’s unintentionally hilarious exchange with Seacrest during season 4’s Hollywood Week. In the footage, he asks her whether she’s seen any stars in Los Angeles. Underwood’s innocent response — looking to the sky as she says it had been too cloudy to see any stars — instantly became a classic “Idol” moment and one she couldn’t possibly forget.

Carrie Underwood Defends Her 2005 Response to Ryan Seacrest

In the clip shared on social media, Seacrest told Underwood that while visiting Hollywood “some people” photograph stars on the sidewalk or the Hollywood sign. But she proudly declared, “Not me!”

“You take pictures of the trees,” Seacrest continued. “Any of the stars? Have you seen stars?”

“I mean, it’s been pretty cloudy,” Underwood replied, pointing to the sky, and Seacrest said, “No, I mean celebrities.”

Laughing, 21-year-old Underwood noted she hadn’t seen those kinds of stars either, and quipped, “Just you!”

After watching the clip 20 years later, Underwood, now 42, admitted, “This moment has haunted me, literally for 20 years. People still bring it up.

Defending her answer at the time, she continued, “It just was what it was. We were talking about buildings and palm trees and things that were outside, and then all of a sudden he threw me a curveball and is talkin’ about celebrities. My brain was still in outdoor mode.”

Underwood added, “A lot of people, I remember actually, at the time, were like, keyboard warriors, (typing) like, ‘Nobody’s this dumb, surely this is scripted.’ I’m sad to say it was not scripted.”

Carrie Underwood Says She Was Sure She’d Get Sent Home After Forgetting Lyrics During Hollywood Week

The clip shared was an excerpt from Underwood’s second “Idol to Icon” web series, in which she looks back at her 2005 journey on the show. In the latest episode, the country superstar said that although her Hollywood Week challenges took place in the exact same spot — at the Orpheum Theater in L.A. — the setting looks “so different” in 2025.

Revisiting footage of her first Hollywood performance in front of judges Simon Cowell, Paula Abdul, and Randy Jackson, the Oklahoma native is seen taking the stage as Seacrest says, “Meet farm girl Carrie Underwood, more used to feeding the cattle with her father than singing on stage. It’s her first trip ever to the big city and she was a little confused.”

The clip of their exchange about stars then played on the show, followed by her singing on stage and promptly forgetting the words to her song.

“I did forget the words,” Underwood said after watching her younger self struggle. “But I feel like in that moment, it was more about how you jump back in. I mean, we’ve had a couple contestants now that we’ve seen mess up some words and kind of lose track of where they were. It’s such a huge moment. You could have practiced this song a million times, but the important thing is you’ve gotta get back on the horse and get back going.”

After the “shaky start,” as Seacrest described her performance in the 2005 episode, Underwood recalls feeling sure that she’d be sent home over flubbing her lines. However, Jackson told her that she’d received a “unanimous yes.”

Underwood never looked back. She sailed through the rest of the competition and was eventually crowned the winner of the fourth season. Within months, she scored her first huge hit with “Jesus Takes The Wheel” and the rest is country music — and “American Idol” — history.