HunterGirl Opens Up About the Pressure of Post-“Idol” Success: 'I Needed to Get Back to What I Had' (Exclusive)

Tricia DespresWed, February 25, 2026 at 1:05 AM UTC

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HunterGirlCredit: Sara Katherine Mills -

HunterGirl's new song "Something Wild" feels like a "timestamp" for the country artist

"I had to free fall into life a little bit more," she tells PEOPLE

It ended up leading her back to her beginnings — to a time when she was young and spent days with her grandfather

After finishing as runner-up on American Idol in 2022 and being hailed by judge Luke Bryan as a "new-age Miranda Lambert," HunterGirl should have felt nothing but confidence and momentum.

But instead, she felt afraid.

"I woke up at the beginning of the year just scared," HunterGirl, now 27, tells PEOPLE. "Who do I want to be? Where am I going next? What's next?" She pauses. "Those are scary questions."

So to combat a little bit of fear and a whole lot of uncertainty, the Tennessee native found herself looking for ways to plant her boots back into the dirt she was raised on — and the song "Somewhere Wild" was born.

"It makes me feel like I'm somewhere I've never been before," she says of the reflective song she wrote alongside Jeff Garrison and Bob DiPiero over the span of just a couple of hours. "Writing 'Somewhere Wild' felt like a timestamp in my journey. I’m just finding myself step by step."

Finding herself did in fact lead HunterGirl back to her beginnings — specifically to a time when she was young and spending her days with her grandfather. "He had this little place by the creek, and he called it 'the wilderness,'" she remembers. "That's where me and my cousin and my sister would play and he had made it this magical place. He would say, 'Just say wilderness three times and then you can run through the woods and anything can happen.'"

It was this past Christmas that HunterGirl, real name Hunter Wolkonowski, came upon that exact same setting.

"I found our old campfire pit that me and my sister and my cousin made," she says. "It made me remember what it’s like being a kid and truly believing that anything could happen, which is so exciting. But then as you get older, the meaning of 'anything could happen' changes a little bit."

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HunterGirl says that instead of excitement, she felt uncertainty. That is, until she found her way back to herself.

"Now I find myself running through the woods of life, I guess," says HunterGirl, who hit on some of the same feelings last year on her endearing single “Dirt." "I remember being so fearless as a kid. And now? Lord, I try to control everything. I finally realized I needed to get back to what I had and just let things be as they are. I had to free fall into life a little bit more."

That’s easier said than done, especially when life after American Idol has a way of moving at lightning speed — and expectations run high.

"It's scary getting compared to somebody [like Miranda]," says HunterGirl, who made her Grand Ole Opry debut four years ago. "You're like, ‘Lord, can I live up to that? In a way, it's kind of terrifying."

HunterGirlCredit: Sara Katherine Mills

Nevertheless, life is good for HunterGirl.

"I'm so happy," she says. "I feel the most me that I've felt, and I feel like I finally centered in on who I am as an artist and what I want to sound like." She laughs, telling PEOPLE: "I'm just living the dream!"

And while she prefers to keep her love life private, HunterGirl does admit to being smitten with the latest man in her life — a furry guy named Pippin.

"I got a new dog," she raves. "He's a year old now, and he's a Shih Tzu. He bosses me around and begs for sweet potatoes every day. There I am, the girl from American Idol in Costco buying three bags of sweet potatoes. I'm like, this is crazy, but I got to say I'm happier than I've ever been."

on People

Original Article on Source

Source: “AOL Entertainment”