Country singer Carly Pearce admitted she feared suffering a heart attack after being diagnosed with recurrent pericarditis, an inflammation of the tissue around the heart.
Pearce recently spoke to Fox News Digital at her annual “Carly’s Closet” fundraiser, revealing the anxiety that followed her 2024 diagnosis. “When you have any kind of diagnosis… it can be scary and give you anxiety about, ‘Is it going to happen again? Am I OK?’ For me, it was ‘Oh my gosh, is my heart OK? Am I going to have a heart attack?’” she said.
The country singer then detailed how she eventually managed to deal with her fear by “making sure that you’re educating yourself to know that those things are not going to happen.” She also shared that she’s “doing really well right now” and is “well-equipped and educated… to know what to do” when she experiences a flare of pericarditis.
When asked whether her diagnosis affected how she tours and performs, Pearce said, “I think it’s probably changed more of my exercise routine. I don’t need to turn the treadmill up to 12, or… outwork out every single person in a class.”
Despite her diagnosis, Pearce has continued touring, though she has previously said that she had to ease back on the energy and strain of her live performances. During her January 2025 appearance on Today, she elaborated on the symptoms she experienced prior to being diagnosed.
Speaking of the issues she started facing in 2020, Pearce said, “I had a really debilitating chest pain that was only relieved if I bent over like this (leaning forward)… And then when you lay back, it gets way worse… I just had a really intense shortness of breath.”
Appearing on Rolling Stone‘s “Nashville Now” in February, the country star recalled doctors dismissing and misdiagnosing her symptoms and telling her, “Oh, you have anxiety. Oh, you have a busy schedule.”
Pearce kept pushing her doctors until they identified the cause of her discomfort and agony. Speaking to Fox News Digital in early 2025, she stated, “My biggest piece of advice for anybody is: Listen to your body, and be your own advocate … a lot of doctors dismissed me, and I was persistent until I got a diagnosis.”
There is a history of cardiac issues in Pearce’s family, with her father enduring a widowmaker heart attack when she was 19. She announced she had been diagnosed with the chronic heart condition in a now-deleted Instagram post in May 2024.
