Country star Carrie Underwood lives a double life: During her working week, she’s a chart-topping A-lister and a red carpet regular; but behind the scenes, she spends her days knee-deep in chicken poop on her family’s 400-acre Tennessee farm.
Underwood, 43, has been in the spotlight since 2004, when she auditioned for the fourth season of “American Idol,” eventually going on to win the competition, a victory that propelled her to stardom—and the top of the Billboard charts.
The Oklahoma native has maintained a thriving music career ever since, even becoming the first “American Idol” winner to serve as a judge on the show, a position she has held since March 2025.
Yet Underwood has never strayed far from her very rural roots, opting to reject the traditional Los Angeles lifestyle in favor of spending the past 20 years living a much quieter, private life in Nashville, where she moved in 2005, soon after winning the talent show.
Since then, the singer has steadily upgraded her residences—most recently moving into a custom-designed mansion on an enormous 400-acre farm in Franklin, TN. Underwood and her husband, former NFL star Mike Fisher, purchased the palatial parcel in two separate transactions, beginning in 2011, for a total of $3.2 million.
They then embarked on designing their custom dream home on the property, which also features multiple barns, a private lake, vegetable gardens, and a chicken coop. The duo operate much of the land as a working farm.
Underwood and Fisher—who share sons Isaiah, 11, and Jacob, 6—officially moved into their enormous mansion on the property in 2018, just a few months before welcoming their second child. It has served as their primary residence ever since.
Though they largely take full advantage of the privacy that their expansive abode affords them, the “Before He Cheats” singer recently shared some insight into what life is really like on the farm—and how it feels to travel between the rural Nashville estate and the bright lights of Hollywood.
In an interview with Us Weekly, Underwood explained that she feels as if her career is the “polar opposite” to her life at home as a mother, wife, and part-time farmer, explaining that she relishes the opportunity to enjoy both environments.
However, she confessed that it can feel a bit strange going between those two worlds, joking that the nitty-gritty of farming makes her feel all the more glamorous when she does step in front of the cameras on the “American Idol” set, particularly because she spends much of her time at home in much muckier circumstances.
“When I’m away, I’m like Cinderella at the ball. I’m a princess, and it’s great,” she explained.
“And then I come home, and I’m, like, covered in dirt. I’m covered in poop. It’s just the polar opposite. I’m, like, cleaning up after everybody and barefoot in the kitchen. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The country star added that she prefers to tackle as much of the farming work personally if she can, even if that leads to some “frustrating” challenges.
“My goal is to just do as much as I can myself,” she said. “I love it. It’s a challenge, and it’s frustrating, and it’s exciting, and it’s rewarding, and just all the things.”
Occasionally, Underwood shares glimpses of9 her farm on her Instagram account, revealing that—in addition to caring for sheep, chickens, and ducks—she regularly harvests fruit and vegetables from her garden, which she uses to make pantry essentials like apple sauce.
One of her more recent successes on the property was growing the Italian heirloom tromboncino squash, which she first planted in summer 2025, although she admitted that her seed sowing process was somewhat haphazard.
“I have always read great things about the Tromboncino squash and thought I’d give it a try this year. I’m a lazy gardener and I just throw seeds in the ground and hope for the best,” she said.
“Only one germinated…thank goodness! Can’t wait to see how it all turns out!”
Luckily for Underwood, her chaotic technique appears to have been very fruitful, with the singer revealing in November that she had harvested five of the enormous vegetables, several of which were almost as tall as she is.
“I had to show off these Tromboncino squash! I’ve got 5 of these babies! Woo hoo! We’ll be eating these all winter!” she said, while proudly posing for photos with the squash.
In many ways, though the property she now resides in is a far cry from the quaint Oklahoma dwelling where she was raised, her life in Tennessee is very much a return to her rural roots. Previously, Underwood had revealed that she enjoyed a very sheltered countryside upbringing, before hitting the big time on “American Idol.”
When she made it through the first round of the show’s auditions and automatically secured herself a spot in the Hollywood round of the competition, the singer admitted that it would be the first time she’d ever set foot in an airport or travel on a plane.
“I was horrified and my dad, on the way to the airport, I was about to cry, and he said, ‘If you want to go home, we can go home, and you don’t ever have to think about this ever again,'” she recalled. “And I was like, ‘But I will think about it, so I have to.'”
In a recent interview with SiriusXM, Underwood said that she learned very quickly after winning “American Idol” that she wanted to separate her private life from the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, admitting that it never felt “real” to her.
“I went from living on a farm to being on stage in front of a ton of people and traveling, and we’re in a different city every day,” she said. “I learned very quickly that this is not real life.”
She added: “It’s important for me that home is just way different than this. We have definitely established that. My kids see me. We get up, we take them to school, we’re making breakfast, packing lunches.”
Indeed, when she’s at home, Underwood said her focus is solely on her kids—and being a good mother and wife, ensuring that the family enjoys dinner together “at least five nights a week.”
“We eat dinner at least five nights a week at the dinner table, and it’s something I cooked,” she said, before joking: “I don’t know if it’s good or not, but we ain’t starving.”
The singer has previously opened up about her desire to raise her children in as “normal” an environment as possible, explaining to People magazine earlier this year that both she and her husband had agonized over the best way to separate their kids from their own celebrity careers.
“I remember when we first found out we were going to have [Isaiah], it [was], like, ‘How are we gonna do this?’ Our lives are so crazy as it is,” she shared.
“But you just make room, and you learn how important that family time is, and to be able to spend time and carve out some of that and maybe get to go on vacation and maybe get to go on a cruise—that stuff is so important to, like I said, make time for family. That’s what it’s all about.”
She added in a 2020 interview with the outlet that she was thrilled when her older son described her job as “doing laundry,” because it meant she’d managed to keep him removed from her actual career.
“Isaiah recently said my job is doing laundry and I kind of loved that, because I don’t really want him to know what I do,” she revealed. “Not that I’m keeping him in the dark, but it made me feel good that he sees me doing mom stuff.”
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