:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():focal(749x0:751x2):format(webp)/HANNAH-HARPER-american-idol-042726-8a7398747f854d90b28ceec9465a56ed.jpg)
Hannah Harper is the next American Idol.
On Monday, May 11, Harper, 25, was crowned the winner of season 24 of American Idol. She performed Chris Tomlin’s “At The Cross (Love Ran Red)” in tears to end the special night. Her fellow contestants joined her onstage.
Harper competed against Jordan McCullough and Keyla Richardson, who ended up in second and third place.
During her audition, the Missouri native left judge Carrie Underwood in tears with her original song called “String Cheese” about a personal struggle with postpartum depression.
“I was sitting on my couch wallowing, and you have boys, you know. Everybody wants to touch you, and I didn’t want to be touched. And my youngest son, I was just having a pity party, praying that the Lord would calm my spirit, and my son kept coming up to me,” Harper said of the song’s inspiration. “He said, ‘Mom, open this. Open my cheese.’ I’m like, ‘Leave me alone with the doggone cheese.’”
She continued, “And I finally opened his cheese, and when I did I realized God had put me in that place, and that where I was in my house was the biggest ministry that I could ever have in being a mom. So, I gathered myself, and I got up off the couch, and I quit throwing a pity party, and I realized that was exactly what I wanted.”
“And I kind of kicked the postpartum depression in the butt, and I said, ‘I ain’t doing it,’” Harper concluded, as her eyes filled with tears.
Afterward, Underwood said that was “the most relatable song” she’d ever heard — and Harper might be her “favorite person that walked through those doors.”
“You’re gorgeous. Like, you look famous already. I just think you have a beautiful simplicity to your voice. You’re one that I’m going to think about when we leave here, like, ‘I wonder what song she’s gonna sing next,’” Underwood said.
The “Before He Cheats” musician continued, “I feel like I’m gonna be just rooting for you. I love everything about everything you just did. I’ll go first, it’s a yes from me.”
The three-hour season finale of American Idol aired on Monday, May 11 at 8 p.m. ET.
