‘American Idol’ Alum Jenna DeVries Confronts Her Cult Past in Music Video for ‘RIP’ (Exclusive)
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Granted, it’s a darkness that seems to somewhat brighten when the LGBTQ+ country artist delivers songs such as the bright and bubbly “Back to Me” and the fun and flirty “Drunk Girls.” But over the course of her new single “RIP,” the New York native reveals a pain that has simmered in her heart since she was just a little girl.
“I was raised in a very high-control religious environment — a cult setting, if I’m being honest,” DeVries tells PEOPLE. “I was subject to a lot of inhumane things because of it. I was married off at 19 years old to an incredibly abusive man, and I was in an abusive relationship for about four years. When I left him, I was completely ostracized by my entire community.”
Soon, DeVries found herself in a “conversion therapy camp that she describes as “horrific.” “And when I came out a few years later after my divorce, it was like that entire community just abandoned me again,” says DeVries, who first garnered attention back in 2016 as a Top 24 finalist on American Idol. “I felt like every time that I was in a place in my life where I really needed those people to embody all of the values that they supposedly held dear, they fell flat.”
It’s these dire feelings that led DeVries to write “RIP.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/american-idol-alum-jenna-devries-020500693.html.
