Sophia Humbert Lets Her Rage Out To Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats’ In A Must-See ‘American Idol’ Audition

Sophia Humbert proved her vocal abilities with a stripped-down, piano-led rendition of Carrie Underwood’s ‘Before He Cheats’ during her American Idol audition. While Underwood and fellow judges Luke Bryan and Lionel Richie were clearly impressed, they decided to help the contestant bring out a little more rage to match the song’s fiery lyrics.

Upon learning which song the 22-year-old Anthem, AZ native would be performing for her audition, Bryan voiced his hesitancy noting, “That’s a tall order.” Humbert seemingly understood the pressure behind delivering the tune in front of the artist who made it a No. 1 hit and still remained confident in her decision to put her vocals behind it.

Humbert made her way over to the white grand piano and began playing the keys to the song that was originally recorded as a hard-hitting cheating anthem. She took a softer and more tender approach that still allowed her powerhouse vocals to shine in front of the judges.

Underwood offered an impressed eyebrow raise amid the performance and later told Humbert, “you have a great voice.” However, she was also quick to point out the fact that the aspiring singer was lacking the rage behind the lyrics.

“I feel like a song like that though, has to be a little rage in there, you know?” Underwood said before proceeding to ask, “do you get angry?”

Humbert timidly assured the previous Idol winner that she does in fact get angry.

“It has to go somewhere. When I sing songs like that, like I’m not an angry person…” Underwood continued, causing Bryan and Richie to whisper their disagreeing opinions under their breath.

“But everybody has stress or pent-up frustrations or whatever and it has to go somewhere. And the reason I love songs like that is because even though I would never do something like that, it’s like you get to sing your way through it.”

Bryan jumped in to insinuate to Humbert that if she’s going to perform a Carrie Underwood song in front of the country queen herself, she has to be prepared to give it all the power and energy she’s got.

“She’s literally the sweetest person in the world. I know, but I didn’t know that until I got on the show with her. I thought she knocked headlights out of stuff and totaled nice trucks,” he joked.

“You’ve got to amp this thing up.”

Bryan then revealed he had a plan to help the young artist add a bit of fuel to her rage. In the following clip, all three judges along with Humbert all packed into a golf cart and headed towards an old red pickup trick. As they put on their safety gear, Bryan informed the auditioner that she was to perform once again while using the tools provided to destroy the vehicle, just as she sings about doing in the lyrics.

“This is an accelerated course on angst, anger, frustration,” the country star revealed.

Each of the judges jumped in to give their tips and Underwood even added some vocals of her own as the contestant delivered her re-do audition performance with a baseball bat in hand.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Carrie Underwood (@carrieunderwood)

As she delivered the chorus with much more power in her voice than before, Underwood dug her key into the “pretty little souped up four-wheel drive.”

After letting out a new level of angst and frustration, Humbert admitted, “I get it now” and proceeded to earn her golden ticket to Hollywood.

Sophia Humbert’s audition aired on Sunday, March 23 as part of American Idol’s eighth season on ABC and the show’s 23rd season overall. The competition resumes next Sunday, March 30, at 8 p.m. ET on ABC, with episodes available to stream on Hulu the following day.