Here’s Why Kellie Pickler Gets Emotional Every Time She Sings “The Letter to Daddy”

Country music superstar and former American Idol standout, Kellie Pickler, proves she is still a daddy’s girl in her song “The Letter to Daddy” despite the troubled life her father has lived. 

It was released in 2012 as a single off her third studio album, 100 Proof, where most of the songs were drawn from her harsh childhood and the storms she’s weathered from being a small-town girl to where she is today.

The singer has always been an open book when it comes to the skeletons in her family’s closet, especially about her father’s struggle with alcoholism and drug addiction. Her father has also been in and out of trouble with the law for much of his life, including aggravated battery and assault related to a stabbing.

The Letter Kellie Pickler Has Always Wanted To Say

Kellie Pickler wrote “The Letter to Daddy” with Nashville songwriters Dale Dodson and Dean Dillon as she looks back at the time when her father was in prison. Her grandparents raised the blonde beauty throughout her life after her mother left her when she was only two, but she would live with her father every time he was not incarcerated.

“People have a perception and opinion of him and his past, but my dad inspired me in so many ways. I’ve always been a daddy’s girl. He was never not a part of my life,” she said. “He loved me and took care of me the best as he could.”

And when he was in prison, they would write letters to each other. “Every time the mail came, my daddy had written me a letter. I have them all — every single letter he’s ever written me since I was a kid,” Pickler said.

Luckily, her father completely turned his life and around. “He’s clean and sober. And he went back to school. It’s inspired me. I watched this man, that I call Dad, transform into a completely different person,” Pickler said to Rolling Stone.

This led Pickler to write to her father another letter in the form of a song.

“This letter is something I’ve always wanted to be able to say. He’s struggled his whole life with alcoholism and drug addiction, and that’s something you never stop struggling with. When you’re an alcoholic, you’re always an alcoholic — even if you’re sober. You’re going to have those days where you feel like giving up,” the singer has explained to The Boot during the release of the song. 

“My dad is sober today, but is he going to be tomorrow? I don’t know. But I do know that I love and support him, and this song is the most special song on my record. I think it’s a sweet way of saying, “We did it! We’re still together, regardless.”

She also admitted that there are moments in the song where she’d get really emotional that her voice would crack. 

Sadly, Pickler’s father, Clyde “Bo” Pickler Jr., died unexpectedly on September 16, 2019, at 54. Though the details of her father’s death have not been revealed, it was believed to be from a massive heart attack.

You can listen to “The Letter to Daddy” in the video below.