Well, this is awkward. Carrie Underwood is scheduled to perform this summer in Montreal – a city she vowed to never step foot in again.
The country superstar was announced this week as the opening act for Guns N’ Roses at Jean-Drapeau Park on Aug. 8.
It was 12 years ago when Underwood told iHeartRadio’s K102 in Minneapolis that Montreal was not exactly Paradise City when she visited with her Canadian husband, former hockey player Mike Fisher.
“Our car got broken into,” she said in the July 2011 interview. “So that was fun. I am not going back to Montreal.”
Underwood stuck to her guns and didn’t include the city on her 2012-2013 Blown Away tour, which stopped in 18 cities across Canada; on her 2016 Storyteller Tour, which made nine stops in Canada; or on her 2019 Cry Pretty Tour 360, which came to eight cities.
Has Underwood forgiven Montreal and cancelled her boycott or has she simply forgotten? One thing is clear: Not everyone has forgotten about her pledge.
“I hope Montrealers give her the big Montreal welcome she deserves! #Boooo," tweeted local journalist Richard Burnett in response to a tweet by producer Esteban Vargas of iHeartRadio station CHOM. CTV News reporter Stéphane Giroux added: “Luckily, no one ever breaks into cars in Nashville.”
Underwood and Fisher took a road trip to Montreal at a time when they lived in a custom-built house on a secluded property west of the arena where Fisher, a native of Peterborough, Ont., played with the Ottawa Senators. He was traded to the Nashville Predators in February 2011.
The couple hasn’t had much luck with vehicles in Canada. In June 2020, Fisher complained on social media that his 1975 Ford F250 truck was stolen in Edmonton. (It was recovered.)