January 2, 2018

"As long as she doesn't paint her face orange and have yellow hair..."

That anti-Trump comment is the top-rated comment at the Washington Post article "Carrie Underwood warns fans she ‘might look a bit different’ after ‘gruesome’ injury," which tells us that the country music star "tripped and fell on the stairs in her Nashville home" last November and is only now talking about the damage to her famously beautiful face:
“I’ll spare you the gruesome details, but when I came out of surgery the night of my fall, the doctor told Mike that he had put between 40-50 stitches in,” she wrote, referring to her husband, hockey player Mike Fisher. “Now here we are 7 weeks later and, even though I’ve had the best people helping me, I’m still healing and not looking quite the same.”
There's also this comment:
I don't know anyone who "fell down stairs" and ended up with 40 stitches on their face. An explanation of how that happens, rather than "I’ll spare you the gruesome details," would be interesting. I've fallen down stairs, I've seen others fall down stairs, I've had people tell me about falling down stairs, no one got a severely lacerated face and "gruesome details." The fact she hid the injury in an effort to see if she could literally cover it up, is interesting. I'm sorry she got hurt, but the "story" seems like a story.
We don't have a right to know the story of a person's private life, but perhaps because the face is famous, we feel entitled to an explanation. A celebrity is just the part of a person that person chooses to reveal. Here's a fictional story to tide you over:

37 comments:

Matt Sablan said...

Remember when it was sexist to doubt Clinton's claim to have fallen on the stairs? Man. 2017. You'll be missed. Also, if she hit her face on the guardrail or broke a lot of teeth or her jaw in the fall this sounds plausible.

Matt Sablan said...

Guardrail. Handrail. Whatever you call it.

Ann Althouse said...

I love how the unbandaged side of Joan Crawford's faces is exquisitely made up.

I highly recommend that movie. It's my personal favorite law movie.

Ann Althouse said...

Here. You can watch it on Amazon Prime (for $3). I'm going to watch it again because I can't remember the details anymore.

Earnest Prole said...

The most likely explanation is that she choked on a pretzel, lost consciousness, and fell, just like George W. Bush.

Ann Althouse said...

That is, I wouldn't want to slog through the whole thing if the plot surprises were spoiled, but now that I've forgotten them and knowing how much I enjoyed them, I want to watch it again.

It's like "Witness for the Prosecution." If I could forget the details, I'd love to watch it again.

tim in vermont said...

The most likely explanation is that she choked on a pretzel.

Or maybe she got in a fight with an exercise machine, like that Harry Reid guy who went from nothing to very wealthy off of a career in “public service” in a town founded by Moe Green.

MadisonMan said...

I don't know anyone who "fell down stairs" and ended up with 40 stitches on their face.

..and because I don't know anyone to whom this has happened, I deny that it can happen at all.

Yet another WaPost reader with a closed mind.

tim in vermont said...

There was a guy in Palm Beach County who got rich in local government, like Harry Reid. He got divorced, and his finances got published, and the Palm Beach Post went over them and oddly, he seemed to own parcels of land all over the county, little cutouts from tracts that he had used his position in government to get approved for various kinds of developments.

Not saying that Harry Reid got rich the exact same way, even though he had the exact same opportunities, and seemed to have experienced the exact same rise in personal wealth, despite the fact that he held a relatively low-paying government job. I am sure he really did get his face beat up like that by an exercise machine that hit him in the face repeatedly!

Terry McAuliffe managed to get extremely rich just by being a fund raiser for the Clintons, who also managed to get extremely wealthy off of relatively low-paying government jobs.

But your pretzel choking story is great!

tim in vermont said...

Yet another WaPost reader with a closed mind

Find me the first one with an open mind, that would be a story.

Greg Hlatky said...

My default assumption when celebs have health problems is that they're lying.

David Begley said...

Because she is a country singer - in the minds’ of WaPo readers - she must be a drunk or her husband beat her with a hockey stick.

It is 24/7 conservative hate and TDS at WaPo.

And did you know that WaPo twice saved the Republic with the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? Movies were made about it. WaPo now going to do the same with Trump.

Curious George said...

WaPost Reader:

1) Can't believe that Carrie Underwood fell and cut up her face.

2) Can believe that:

a) Hillary Clinton has never committed a crime with her email server.
b) Bill Clinton never raped or assaulted a woman.
c) Barack Obama didn't know anything about anything in his administration until he read it in WaPo.
d) Loretta Lynch DID talk about her grandkids with Bill Clinton in AZ.


RMc said...

the doctor told Mike that he had put between 40-50 stitches in,” she wrote, referring to her husband, hockey player Mike Fisher.

If there's anybody who knows about stitches, it's a hockey player!

tim maguire said...

We're not entitled to an explanation, but we got one. And the one we got sounds implausible; therefore, it is natural and expected that we will wonder what the truth is. A variation on the Streisand effect. We're not emtitled to know where Barbara Streisand lives either.

dreams said...

I hope it hasn't caused permanent damage to her good looks, time will do that soon enough.

iowan2 said...

Its very hard to relate how much I dont care.
If even this vast nothingness devolves into an us vs them debate, all is truly lost.

tim maguire said...

Some people are incapable of looking past us vs. them. But it is possible, even easy, to look past those people.

Etienne said...

Country singers look and sound better when hard rode and put away wet.

Tank said...

David Begley said...

Because she is a country singer - in the minds’ of WaPo readers - she must be a drunk or her husband beat her with a hockey stick.


I like country music and I've seen Underwood (who I can never stop calling underwear) in concert, but if you listen to some of the lyrics in her songs, well, it could be true. Check out Before He Cheats or Something Bad (with Miranda Lambert, another Country Crazy Chick). Lotta these women country singers (another is Kim Perry) got a couple extra servings of crazy.

MayBee said...

I'm guessing there are so many stitches because they are teeny tiny stitches by a plastic surgeon. so that the scar doesn't show.

As for falling down the stairs, why not? She could have hit the bannister or another design element. I passed out (low blood pressure) getting out of bed one night and hit my eye socket on a dresser. I needed up with a big black eye, and people always gave me that "sure that's what happened" look. It was awful.

Josephbleau said...

David Begley said...And did you know that WaPo twice saved the Republic with the Pentagon Papers and Watergate? Movies were made about it. WaPo now going to do the same with Trump.


Mark Felt, the savior of the USA, was convicted of approving FBI black bag jobs to break in to peoples homes to gather dirt. This was 10 times worse than what Nixon's people did. But he died a liberal hero and Nixon died a beastly scoundrel. This is why Democrat leaders morally suck. Can anyone make moral decisions separate from coarse personal benefit anymore? Such as the Submarine sailor thrown in jail for taking picks of his secret work space and Hillary Aide Mrs Wiener putting secret docs on non security cleared Mr. Wieners computer? If one is criminal, I bet the other is too. Oh well, the chicoms already got the sub plans anyway by having a spy go to work for Electric Boat Co.

Ralph L said...

I get her confused with Trisha Yearwood, who's from my college roommate's tiny town.

This is the American Idol winner?

tcrosse said...

It's that paradoxical intercourse of audience and celebrity.

rehajm said...

she must be a drunk or her husband beat her with a hockey stick

Damn those Nashville Predators. I'm still having a hard time with the commingling of hockey and country.

William said...

f she loses her looks and her husband leaves her, she will become the greatest contry singer of all time. If it turns out her husband beat her, she will become a feminist icon and Charlize Theron will play her in the movie.........I'm partial to Allison Krauss. She's not so pretty that you think it's her face that her face made her a star, nor so homely that you have to work around her looks when she sings of love and loss.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Patsy Cline had scars on her forehead from a horrific car crash.

It didn't seem to affect her ability to sing and become a legendary Country Western star.

But..that was then. This is now, when people are so superficial and judgemental about looks.

Psota said...

There's something weirdly disassociated about the part where she says the doctor told her husband how many stitches she got. There doc can't talk to her directly?

Dust Bunny Queen said...

There [sic] doc can't talk to her directly?

The doctor could probably have talked AT her, but since she was likely still recovering from sedation and drooling into the pillow, there would be no point. Her husband, being the next of kin, un-sedated and hopefully not drooling, was informed of her status, the results of the operation,recovery chances and yes....probably how many stitches.

What part of this is difficult for you to understand?

reader said...

My sister doesn't have the instinct to throw her hands out when she falls or to tuck and roll. She goes down like a plank. She has ended up with a concussion and a broken nose from minor falls.

MayBee, something similar happened with my husband and me. I had minor surgery on my face resulting in stitches and a black eye. I'm pretty small and JG is over six feet. We were out running errands and people were treating him so poorly he wouldn't walk next to me anymore.

cheddar said...

Some reports make clear that she fell on the stairs outside of her home, which could involve falling into rocks and landscaping.

Big Mike said...

I don’t care about her looks, I just hope nothing happened to damage the wonderful voice.

wwww said...


My mother's GP told her that she sees injuries that happen within the home quite often. The GP said she has seen simple falls off ladders change people's lives.

Taking a couple of jujutsu classes is helpful for learning how to fall.

Big Mike said...

@wwww, I’ll second that! Aikido and Judo also teach one how to fall without hurting oneself. A few years ago I stepped on a piece of kiwi someone had dropped on the cafeteria floor and went straight down. Not only did I not hurt myself, but I didn’t even spill anything from my tray.

walter said...

That highlighted comment is a top notch "But Truuuuuumppp!"
Surprised this post didn't get a TDS tag.

Big Mike,
Looks like you fell victim to a foodie age version of the ole banana peel slip.
But kiwi's are kinda pricey to be stuffing in tailpipes.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Not only did I not hurt myself, but I didn’t even spill anything from my tray.


Good work, sergeant, but no more than I expected from you. Yes, it's the first thing they teach you in judo, how to fall.

Gulistan said...

"We don't have a right to know the story of a person's private life, but perhaps because the face is famous, we feel entitled to an explanation. A celebrity is just the part of a person that person chooses to reveal."

I just listened to an episode of RadioLab about a guy named Oliver Sipple, an ex-Marine who saved Pres. Ford from an assassination attempt. The media coverage of his private life basically ended up killing him, though.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/oliver-sipple/