Country Singer Hannah Prestridge Beats Addiction, Earns ‘American Idol’ Spot [WATCH]
During Sunday night's (Feb. 23) American Idol auditions, Hannah Prestridge earned a "golden ticket" to Hollywood after auditioning alongside her husband, Curt Jones. The unanimous "yes" she received from all three judges was a bright spot following the country singer-songwriter's battle with hydrocodone addiction.
Together known as Treble Soul, Jones and Prestridge met in 2014, when they were singing in Nashville's Lower Broadway district. They quickly became a duo and fell in love, and became pregnant only a few months into their relationship. It was during that pregnancy that Prestridge began having a kidney problem that put both her and her daughter's life in danger and necessitated that she begin receiving hydrocodone.
"That's when my addiction became my addiction," Prestridge admits. Daughter Presley was born healthy, but Prestridge herself "began spiraling out of control."
"I watched the most beautiful woman I've never seen in my life kind of fade away into this ghost I never knew," Jones says. Around Christmas in 2018, after Prestridge "didn't even show up at my own house to put the presents under the Christmas tree," Jones gave her an ultimatum: "You need to fix your stuff, or I'm gone with the girls."
Prestridge decided to get clean for her family, which also includes younger daughter Charlee. At the time of her American Idol audition, she was one year sober, and performed an original song about "more of the bad times" she and Jones had gone through.
Jones, who auditioned with a cover of Travis Tritt's "Help Me Hold On," was not advanced to Hollywood by American Idol judges Luke Bryan, Katy Perry and Lionel Richie. However, he told them, he and Prestridge did not both need to earn golden tickets; if one of them did, the other would be there to support them the whole way.
"I would support her no matter what," he said as Prestridge was offered her Hollywood spot. "I'm looking forward to watching the journey."
Perry congratulated Prestridge on her sobriety, and cautioned her that continuing to compete on Idol would require her to stay sober. Bryan, meanwhile, offered Jones one heck of a compliment.
"It's a yes for me," the country star told the Idol hopeful, "for being a great man."
American Idol auditions will continue on Sunday (March 1). The show, now in its 18th season, airs on ABC.
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