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And that's not the only thing Hill is being brutally frank about. The past year, she says, has presented her with challenges that have made her take stock of who she is – and how the public perceives her. Beneath that ex-cheerleader spunk and golden mane, there is a fiery spirit, which might help explain two incidents that turned Hill into an unlikely YouTube sensation: chastising a fan for grabbing her husband's crotch in July and, in what she calls "the worst experience of my life," being publicly criticized after she seemed to be caught on live TV making a face when Carrie Underwood beat her to win Female Vocalist of the Year at the CMA awards last November.
Hill says she was just being "goofy" when she mouthed an apparently indignant "What" and that the full video footage shows her laughing as she walked away. Pals know Hill to be, as actress Rita Wilson says, "playful and witty." But more than 10 million viewers watched YouTube's abbreviated version and, overnight, the sweetheart from Star, Miss., turned into the nation's sorest loser. "It was hell," says Hill. "I was being ripped apart limb by limb. I wanted to quit."
"She was making fun of herself and it came out completely out of context," says her friend, country singer Martina McBride. "She is such a good person, one of the people in the industry who has gone out of her way to support other women. It really hurt her that people would be so quick to think something bad."
