Keith Urban Shocks Kelly Clarkson With Confession: “I Failed Music”
on Sep 26, 2024
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Country star Keith Urban recently shared a surprising story from his school days that left Kelly Clarkson and her audience shocked.
Despite his current success as a renowned country singer, guitarist, and Nashville Songwriting Hall of Fame member, Keith Urban’s path to musical stardom had its fair share of setbacks.
Urban’s musical education in Australia was far from traditional. During an interview with Country 103.7 at CMA Fest in June, he recalled his high school experience:
“I was very lucky to have a great music education program in Australia growing up, just in state schools. You know, basic state schools always had music class. It was a basic room, piano, and a few little instruments floating around.”
Turns out, Urban’s tenth-grade music teacher, Mrs. Grimmer, who he called a “great teacher,” played a pivotal role in his career. Recognizing that Urban and several classmates struggled with conventional music theory, she devised an alternative approach.
To prevent her students from failing, Mrs. Grimmer created a play titled “Music Is As Music Was,” which explored music history and incorporated various genres.
“That kind of passion and caring from the teacher is extraordinary,” Urban said.
Despite initial approval and a successful performance, the school administration ultimately deemed the play non-compliant with the curriculum. As a result, Urban and his classmates failed the course, leading to Mrs. Grimmer’s resignation in protest.
Urban shared this story once again on a recent visit to The Kelly Clarkson Show, referring to his teacher:
“Oh, my gosh. Mrs. Grimmer. Shout out to Megan Grimmer. She was my music teacher in the 10th grade. And she was an amazing teacher. I can’t read music, and a lot of the kids in the class couldn’t read music, didn’t have any theory, but were amazing musicians. But we were all gonna fail music because it was all theory-based. She wrote an entire play for us to perform and we were gonna be graded on the play and the performance. And everybody did it. We did it. And towards the end of the year, the principal and the curriculum said it’s not part of our official thing, so I failed music.”
Keith Urban recently released HIGH, his first studio album in four years. The project includes a new track titled “Go Home W U” with Lainey Wilson. And he recently performed his new song, “Chuck Taylors” on Kelly’s show. Check it out below!
RELATED: Keith Urban Performs Surprise Pop-Up Show In Nashville To Celebrate Album Release
Kelly Clarkson’s shocked reaction to Urban’s confession of failing music class was pretty hilarious:
“That’s like Neil deGrasse Tyson failing science. I don’t know. I just, I don’t understand…That’s so funny to me,” she said.
Guess traditional measures of musical ability don’t always predict future success in the industry, and Keith Urban is here to prove it! Watch Kelly’s reaction below.
