Carrie Underwood Has Changed So Much Since Her American Idol Debut

Carrie Underwood has come a long way since she was an unknown college student with big dreams of winning "American Idol." The country superstar appeared on Season 4 of the singing show in 2005, and she's almost unrecognizable from the 22-year-old Oklahoma farm girl who triumphed over runner-up rocker Bo Bice. Much of this "All-American Girl"'s transformation has been physical too, as Underwood looked so different without her signature hair extensions on the show. 

Underwood appeared to sport her hair's natural texture throughout the season, including during her audition when she wore her blond locks in tight curls just past her shoulders. The star joked about the style to HuffPost in 2015, admitting she wanted to "Undo It." "When I was in college, I would put a lot of product in my hair and force it to be curly. And I definitely did that on my first 'Idol' audition! I call it my 'crunchy' hair," she said. The star has also copped to getting a little help to keep her skin looking good. "I'm always like, what can we laser? What can we do? If I remove this layer of skin, is the one underneath prettier?" she joked on "The Howard Stern Show" in 2023. The star also confessed, "I do like some Botox." 

Underwood has undergone a major fitness transformation, too. She told Women's Health she received negative comments about her appearance while on "American Idol," which motivated her to life a healthier lifestyle. "I knew I could be better for myself, and I let my haters be my motivators," she said. The singer added of her workout routine, "If I can work out seven days a week — which doesn't happen, but if I can — I'm going to."

Not only has Carrie Underwood's stunning transformation meant a lot of physical changes since her "American Idol" days, her lifestyle is drastically different to the one she was living before fame. Underwood has gotten used to flying across the world ("I've never been in one place for this long in the past 15-plus years of my career," she told "Today" amid the Covid-19 pandemic), but revealed on "The Late Show with Stephen Colbert" she took her first ever plane ride for the show. "I'm 36 years old and I've been to lots of airports, but back then I was by myself and there were lots of connecting flights to get there," she recalled. The southern beauty even missed a connection and didn't know how to handle it. "I was like, 'I'm gonna have to find some nice airport employee to tell me what to do, because I don't know what to do," she said. Underwood's personal life has evolved a lot since she was first on our screens, too. She married Mike Fisher in 2010 and the two welcomed two sons, Isaiah and Jacob.

One thing that's stayed the same, though? Her small-town mentality. Though Underwood moved from Oklahoma to Nashville after winning "American Idol," she still lives on a farm surrounded by animals — just like back home. "I make the joke now that it's like, I grew up on a farm in a really small town, go try out for 'American Idol,' go all over the world, to go on tours, make albums, do all this stuff, just so I could buy a farm and go back to the farm and live on a farm in a small, little town. That's roots," she said in a YouTube video.