Ella Langley Gets Vulnerable About Facing Criticism Amid Record-Breaking Success

Ella Langley candidly reacted to criticism amid her hit single's historic success.

Langley, 27, addressed the public's opinions about her as her career continues to skyrocket. The Alabama-born country star recently set another record with "Choosin' Texas," which reached 23 weeks at No. 1, surpassingMariah Carey 's "All I Want for Christmas Is You." Langley opened up about the attention she's received during a recent show.

"I don't think - no, I know this. And growing up in a small town, this is saying a lot. I don't think I've ever had more opinions on myself in my life than I have in this last year," Langley said in clips recorded by concertgoers and shared on social media. "The way I look, the way I speak, the way I dress, the way I move, the way I sing, the way I write. And at first it bothered me. I won't even lie. At first I was like, 'What am I going to do about this? I don't know - if this is what I'm signing up to do, I don't know about this.' I signed up to sing music and I love to do what I do, but if this is what it's going to be the whole entire time, I mean s***…I don't know if I'm strong enough for this.

"But then I really got to think about it. And I started to think about the girl that they're kind of picking on is the girl that got me where I'm sitting here today," Langley continued as the audience cheered and applauded. "That's the girl that rode in a 15-passenger van night after night after night. She rode in a Honda Accord night after night after night, chasing her dream, living on bar food, living on tip jar money. She didn't have anything but a dream, and the ability to get up and do it every single day. So, I'm gonna tell you right now, I am proud of that girl that everybody seems to be picking on," she said.

Langley wrote "Choosin' Texas" with Miranda Lambert, Joybeth Taylor and Luke Dick, and directed the cinematic music video with Wales Toney and Caylee Robillard. Langley has continued to mark milestones with the hit single, which appeared on her sophomore studio record, Dandelion, earlier this year. She received more nominations than any other artist at the Country Music Association's milestone 60th CMA Awards on November 18.

"We were just having a writer's retreat, and she [Lambert] was telling me this story about how she had a kangaroo in her passenger seat, and she got pulled over, and the cop was like, 'oh, you have Texas plates.' And I went, 'well, she's from Texas, I can tell,' Langley said of the story behind the hit single on the 2026 iHeartRadio Music Awards red carpet earlier this year. She took home the award for Best New Country Artist that night. "And literally just from that phrase, the 'she's from Texas, I can tell by the way,' kind of just fell out, and I think we all latched onto that story of, 'oh, he picked the other girl.' You know? He picked someone else. I think everyone's had a crush, and at some point that crush was more into somebody else at one point. If not, then lucky you or you're lying."