Carrie Underwood Is ‘Impressed’ By ‘American Idol’ Contestant, Comparing Her To Taylor Swift In Viral Clip: ‘There’s Something About Her’

Carrie Underwood has made a remarkable return to the show that brought her fame, American Idol. After less than 10 episodes, she may have already found the next Taylor Swift during auditions in Nashville, Tennessee.

During auditions for the show in Nashville, the “Before He Cheats” singer met a young singer-songwriter named Zaylie Windsor, who blew her away with an original song. The clip of Zaylie’s audition not only gained a lot of attention online because of her beautiful voice, but also because Carrie compared her to megastar Taylor Swift while vouching for her to make it to the show’s famous Hollywood week. Read more about the viral audition below.

On Sunday, March 30th, the American Idol crew and judges, including alum Carrie Underwood, Lionel Richie, and Luke Bryan, touched down in Nashville, Tennessee, to meet and listen to more potential contestants for the famous competition series.

The record-making country star first auditioned for the show in 2004 in Missouri before becoming its fourth-season winner. Since her career has become so massive since then, and she had first-hand experience as a contestant, fans of the series were very excited to see that she would be joining as a judge.

Nashville is a city full of talent, and although the judges met a few Tennessee natives, they also got to witness some out-of-town talent during the auditions. One of those out-of-towners was 20-year-old Zaylie Windsor from Safford, Arizona.

Zaylie walked in with an acoustic guitar and chose to sing a breakup song she had written when she was only 14, titled “The Used.” While she sang, the judges looked on and listened intently, with Carrie flashing a few smiles during certain moments of the song.