Music has helped Carly Waddell heal following her divorce from Evan Bass in more ways than one.
“I’ve been a singer my whole life. When I wasn’t in a show, I was waiting tables until my next show. So I didn’t really know who I was besides that. And then I became a wife and then I became a mom and I kind of lost that part of me,” the 37-year-old Bachelor alum exclusively told Us Weekly on the “Here for the Right Reasons” podcast. “Before I got divorced, when I knew I didn’t wanna have any more children, I was like, ‘I wanna get back to me.’ And when I asked the question, ‘Who am I? What do I love?’ It’s music, it’s singing, it’s writing.”
Waddell’s first single, “Your Friends Like Me More,” and music video drop on Monday, May 1, and despite the sassy lyrics — “I don’t care who you’re dating now / Your friends tell me she’s a big step down / I ain’t keeping score, but you should know your friends like me more” — she promises Us that she’s not throwing shade at Bass, 40.
“I’m not Taylor Swift,” Waddell told Us with a laugh. “And I love that she writes about her life, but I was coming out of a divorce and that’s literally the last thing I wanted to think about. People can say whatever they want — they’re going to anyway. But no, I didn’t want that. I remember when I sat down with these writers and they were like, ‘We should write about your divorce.’ And I was like, ‘No, ew. I don’t wanna even think about that. I want the fun part of me to come back out.’ I was like, ‘I want Shania Twain songs!’ I knew people were gonna [assume], especially when, you know, some of these songs like ‘Make a Guy a Jerk,’ but there are guys out there that are jerks, you know? It’s not about Evan! People can interpret however they want to — they’re gonna do it anyway.”
Waddell and Bass met on season 3 of Bachelor in Paradise and wed in 2017. The duo, who share two kids: Bella, 5, and Charlie, 3, announced their split in December 2020. (The Bachelorette alum also has three sons from a previous relationship.)
She told Us that there’s only one out of six tracks on her upcoming EP that is “50 percent about” her life.
“Nothing really is personal at all [in] the other songs except for this song coming out called ‘Two Little Angels.’ That’s really about my children. It’s also about, like, in a relationship should you stay together just because you have kids or not. And it doesn’t give an answer because I don’t think there’s a correct answer for that,” she explained. “At the end of the day, you’re left with these beautiful children and it’s the greatest gift you could possibly have. … There’s a lot in there that I added in for a dramatic effect that didn’t happen.”
Waddell describes the other tracks as “boat songs” or “summer party” anthems.
“‘Drinking Game’ — that one’s really fun too. But there’s a song called ‘Just Work’ that’s about like, ‘Man, it’s just so easy. This relationship is so easy,’” she said. “And there’s a song called ‘My Kind of Woman.’ That was the first song that we wrote. And that one’s really cool too because it’s really just like, let’s all band together and just be badasses.”
