Country Star Gabby Barrett Reveals Rare Medical Condition, Leaving Tour

Singer Gabby Barrett

Getty Gabby Barrett, Winner of 2021 Billboard Top Country Female Artist Award.

Country star Gabby Barrett will leave Jason Aldean’s concert tour halfway through its run to focus on her health. Expecting her second child with her husband and fellow “American Idol” alum Cade Foehner, Barrett shared that she’s finding the tour “is getting difficult” and revealed she’d been diagnosed with a rare medical condition.

After Barrett announced her pregnancy in May, she knew that performing during her third trimester might prove challenging, so she informed Aldean, who proactively booked a trio of big names in country music to take Barrett’s place on the road after their August 2022 concert dates: Travis Tritt, Tracy Lawrence, and Chase Rice.

But in an Instagram Q&A with fans on August 14, the singer admitted that it’s not just her pregnancy that’s causing her to “struggle” on tour.


Barrett Shares Details of Pregnancy Complications

Gabby Barrett pregnant

GettyCharlie Puth and Gabby Barrett perform onstage at the CMA Awards in November 2020.

While heading to her next concert in Clarkston, Mich., Barrett popped into her Instagram Stories on August 14, offering to answer fans’ questions. In addition to answering some fun questions — like sharing that she doesn’t have any tattoos — Barrett also shared some serious insights about her pregnancies.

When one fan asked whether this baby was planned, Barrett answered, “Not really. It was a clear prayer answered though. I had a very difficult first pregnancy (I can talk about that more if interested) but still a blessing of course!”

Fans did, indeed, want to know more. Barrett shared that complications first arose when she was expecting her daughter Baylah, she developed a challenging skin condition.

“With Baylah, I got a very bad case of PUPPS rash that covered my entire body,” she wrote. According to the Cleveland Clinic, the condition — pruritic urticarial papules and plaques of pregnancy — is “an extremely irritating hive-like rash” that does not harm mom or baby, but the itching can be very difficult to manage until it disappears after the baby is born.

For Barrett, that was just the beginning of her pregnancy complications. She shared that after Baylah’s birth, she was diagnosed with postpartum preeclampsia which, according to the Mayo Clinic, is a rare condition that occurs when a new mother has high blood pressure and excess protein in her urine soon after childbirth. The condition requires prompt treatment because it can cause seizures and other serious complications. It can also reoccur in subsequent pregnancies.

“I had to get on blood pressure medicine when I was 20,” Barrett wrote. “Thank God provides doctors for help!”

With her current pregnancy, Barrett revealed she’s now dealing with blood pressure that’s too low.

“I struggle with very low blood pressure almost everyday in this pregnancy,” she wrote, “which makes it hard to have energy to perform.”

VeryWellFamily.com says chronic low blood pressure during pregnancy can cause severe fatigue, dizziness, blurred vision, trouble concentrating, and other symptoms. And if it’s caused by a medication, like the one Barrett may still be on to prevent preeclampsia again, doctors must monitor the situation closely.


Barrett Admits Juggling Parenting & Performing Is ‘Challenging’

During Barrett’s Instagram Q&A, one fan asked how she balances “career, kiddos and your personal faith?”

The young mom, who received the Rising Star Award at Billboard’s Women in Music 2022 event in March, replied, “It is challenging, very. But God gives me grace, and helps me to navigate through it day by day. It is not easy touring while pregnant I have found either. Ha!”

According to Sounds Like Nashville, Barrett told Audacy’s Rob + Holly Show in March that being a mom to Baylah takes precedence over being a performer. With her husband playing guitar during her concerts, she said they’re fortunate their little girl enjoys life on the road.

“She comes with me everywhere that I go,” Barrett said. “I like to be a very hands-on mom. She’s my first priority over music, over anything. She comes on the bus, she normally stays in the bus with the nanny — she has a nanny that watches her. She’ll stay on the bus and I’ll be with her until I have to like, do my make up or do an interview, or do the show and I come back on and I’m Mom.”

Barrett’s last show on Aldean’s tour is August 27 in Darien Center, N.Y. She told fans on Instagram that her baby boy is due in early November.