Little Miss Runner Up

Album: yet to be titled (2024)
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Songfacts®:

  • Gretchen Wilson returned to action in 2024 with "Little Miss Runner Up," a song about a "bleach blonde devil in a push-up cup" who has a reputation for enticing men who are already taken. All the women in town cringe when they see her, but she gives them plenty to talk about!
  • "Little Miss Runner Up" was Wilson's first new music since 2017. Released in 2024, it marked the 20th anniversary of her landmark debut single, "Redneck Woman."

    Wilson took Nashville by storm with her no-nonsense swagger that bucked the trend of high-gloss singers like Shania Twain and Faith Hill. Her debut album, Here For The Party, did very well, but her next two didn't, and in 2009 she left Epic Records to go independent. Wilson wasn't nearly as visible in the 2010s, and after her 2017 album Ready To Get Rowdy she had some setbacks, including a devastating bout of COVID and an injury that left her in a wheelchair for months.

    "Little Miss Runner Up," released in June 2024, was her comeback single. She hit the road, touring with Big & Rich and playing the CMA Fest. She launched a headline tour in January 2025 and in May emerged out of the sea creature costume ("Pearl") on The Masked Singer to win the competition.
  • Wilson considers this song a sequel to her 2004 hit "Homewrecker," where she gives the lady-tramp a stern warning. She wrote both songs with the Music Row veterans Rivers Rutherford and George Teren.
  • In the music video, directed by Natalie Ruffino Wilson, Allee-Sutton Hethcoat plays Little Miss Runner Up. It's set at a bowling alley where she goes trolling for men. It doesn't end well for her: she gets sloppy drunk and passes out.

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