Ingrid Andress reflects on 'botching' national anthem at MLB's Home Run Derby

Brayden Garcia, Fort Worth Star-Telegram on Mar 13, 2025

Published in Baseball

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FORT WORTH, Texas — It’s been nearly eight months since singer Ingrid Andress admitted she was drunk during her rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at the MLB Home Run Derby in Arlington.

Many viewers were taken aback by the Grammy nominee’s off-key performance at Globe Life Field on July 15, 2024. Just a day later, Andress admitted she was drunk while singing and said she planned to check herself into a rehabilitation facility.

On Feb. 28, Andress gave the national anthem another go, this time at a Colorado Avalanche game in Denver. The performance went over well, and now the singer is talking about her long journey back to public life.

“I feel like the botching the anthem was the sign for me to be like, ‘Hey, we need to stop and figure out what’s going on,’ ” Andress told Variety. “Because I knew that I wasn’t in a good place, but I didn’t know what to do or who to talk to about it.”

Andress on why she was drunk

Drinking ahead of the national anthem performance wasn’t necessarily about needing “liquid courage,” Andress said.

Instead, the singer said she went through several “big personal life changes” that she didn’t stop to process, including changing managers and a breakup.

Everything had been building in the weeks prior, not just on the day of the anthem, Andress said.

“I just was starting to enjoy the numbing feeling that I was getting by drinking more than I realized, I guess,” Andress told Variety. “It had been like a couple weeks of not feeling like myself at all — or months.”

Andress didn’t register how big of a deal it was until the next morning.

“It was kind of like in and out of where I thought it went OK, but I also was like, ‘I could have sung it better,’ and then blah, blah, blah — I just didn’t care,” Andress said. “I didn’t realize how bad it was until the next morning. I woke up with that pit in my stomach of like, ‘I (expletive) up, and I need help.’”

Andress on singing the national anthem again

Andress said she was “terrified” to perform the national anthem again.

When she and her team were talking about doing it, Andress said that she would “never” sing it again. But as the weeks went by, she changed her tune.

“I was like, ‘No, I need to do this. I’m terrified to do it. And honestly, if I mess it up twice, it’s really hard coming back from that,’ ” Andress told Variety. “You can’t mess it up two times in a row.”

Andress chose the Colorado Avalanche game, since she grew up in the Centennial State.

The crowd chimed in during the performance, which caught Andress off guard and caused her to let out a chuckle. However, Andress said it felt like “stress relief” and reminded her that she could do it.

“There was a lot weighing on it, but I’m really happy that I did that, because it feels like that chapter of my story has closed and I can move on and get back to songwriting and like back to who I feel like I really am,” Andress said.