"I Just Felt Unworthy:" Ella Langley Opens Up About Her Mental Health Struggles During Her Breakout Year

Ella Langley has been on top for the last couple of years. Her songs have crested the charts; her name has been up for many a category at almost every awards ceremony of late; and her lyrics have been on the tips of our tongues since 'you look like you love me' first graced our ears.

Inside, though, the 'weren't for the wind' hitmaker recently struggled with such heights, her breakout year apparently leaving her feeling lower, at times, than any camera or stage light could show.

While in conversation with fellow country star Jo Dee Messina at CRS 2026, the artist got candid about the mental health battle that arrived around the time of the Academy of Country Music Awards last May.

"I haven't shared this really publicly, and I kind of feel called to right now," she explained during the intimate one-on-one. "I've always kind of struggled with my mental health in a way. I don't know why. My parents literally talk about me being a kid walking through the room being like, 'It's the best day ever,' and then five minutes later, like, 'This is the worst day of my life' ... I feel a lot. I feel everything so much. Every emotion, I just very intensely feel it, whatever it may be."

For her, those feelings intensified even more last summer, around the time of she was nominated for 8 ACM awards, the most of anyone nominated that year.

"I got the news in Canada," she explained, "and it just rocked my world. I wasn't even invited to the ACMs the year before. To me, in my head, everyone is going to watch me come in and be like, 'What is she doing here? Why is she getting eight ACM nominations. She's only been here four seconds.'"

She described feeling undeserving of that success, saying, "Even though I had worked so hard every single day, I've given everything up to do this one thing, I just still felt unworthy of it for some reason."

With the awards taking place around the time of her birthday, she decided to use her one day off between touring and the ceremony to go to the beach. "I was like, 'I would do anything to spend a day on the beach'," she shared. "If I can have a Piña Colada in my hand on my birthday laying on the beach, I think that it would fix 700 problems for me."

When she awoke on her tour bus at that faithful locale, however, it appeared fun in the sun was not in her cards.

"I woke up on the bus that morning," she said, "and it's the day you don't want it to look like outside. It ain't clearing up. It's not one of those, 'Oh, it just rains because it's Florida.' No, it's sad looking outside."

The band and crew members that stayed with her for the journey attempted to make the best of the day they had, though. They coaxed her onto the beach to play in the ocean and ended their night with a Tom Hanks movie marathon.

Still, she couldn't seem to shake that feeling of sadness, describing the sense of guilt that followed as she found herself unable to be the person she thought she needed to be for her team. "I felt like I wasn't giving them the version of the artists that they deserved," she said.

It wasn't until the next day that the floodgates seemed to open, all of those mounting emotions brimming over while on her tour bus, packing up to make it to the ceremony.

"We woke up the day after," she details, "It was the day to leave the beach, and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. It was the sunniest, most beautiful day, and my band had left to go have some pancakes, or something, and I'm packing all my stuff up, and I start having this panic attack. Up until this point, I'd had some, but this was like a different level – like could not catch my breath – breathing. Just couldn't stop. I literally had to call my mom and just have her talk to me on the phone, and I just sat there on the floor and it took like 30 minutes."

Soon after, some of her bandmates trickled onto the bus. Describing her band as "family," she explained, "They just sat there and looked me in the eyes and said, 'We've got you and they just let me have it.'"

After several moments of collecting themselves, the band finally departed, catching an Uber and scrambling to make their appearance at the awards ceremony. "We're so late, the Uber has been waiting for 45 minutes," she shared, but, in hindsight, that may have been fate.

There, in the ride share, still feeling dejected, she spotted something out the window when stopped at a red light.

"There's this one white car, and then there are all these black cars around it. And I was like, 'You know, that's kind of like what the devil's doing to me right now.' ... It feels like I'm getting attacked from all different angles, and there's this one amazing thing happening, but for some reason, my brain's not letting it happen. And I said, 'It'd be kind of crazy if another white car came.' Here comes another white car."

This happened again and again, white cars joining the fleet in front of Langley's eyes. She said, "I'm sitting there like, 'What? That's a coincidence.'" She recalled snapping out of it and looking around the car, where she didn't realize religious radio had been playing lowly. When she looked back out the window, she noticed one of the white cars was adorned with a "He is Greater" bumper sticker.

"I grew up in church," she added. "I've watched revivals where people would come in and say, 'I felt Him talking to me. I heard Him talking to me.' This is what they're talking about."

She was brought back to reality when she heard her manager say that there were problems with their luggage. Again, the dejection arose within her.

Their Uber driver, however, did something that would move the artist. "She looks at me in the rear view mirror – and has no idea the moment that I'm having in this backseat – looks at me in the eyes and says, 'God's got you.'"

Together, the two women shared a personal moment. "She just put her hand back and just kind of rubbed my leg and sang a hymn. I just sat there and cried like a little kid. For the first time in my life, I accepted that presence that has been there the whole entire time."

Soon after the ceremony, the artist took a break from the road, postponing a handful of dates set for August 2025. She took time for herself, reigniting her faith and leaning into the words a mystery Uber driver gifted her while she was at her lowest.

As Langley shared, "It took me to my knees, and I'm so grateful for the journey that He's led me on, because it genuinely has brought me into the human being that is made to do this."

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