This Week In... 2006
We look back at Carrie Underwood's award-winning crossover hit 'Before He Cheats'
The Song
Before He Cheats
The Artist
Carrie Underwood
The Lyrics
"I took a Louisville slugger to both headlights/ I slashed a hole in all four tires/ Maybe next time he'll think before he cheats"
The Results
Before He Cheats was a huge crossover hit, having peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Country Songs chart and cracked the Top 10 on the US Billboard Adult Top 40, Adult Contemporary and Mainstream Top 40 charts.
Underwood's most commercially successful song has sold over four million digital downloads as of June, becoming the first country song to sell over two million digitally. It's also the third best-selling song by an American Idol contestant, behind Phillip Phillips' Home and Kelly Clarkson's Stronger (What Doesn't Kill You).
That was then…
The accolades for Before He Cheats, about a woman taking revenge on her unfaithful beau, just kept on coming.
Not only did the track win Grammys for Best Female Country Vocal Performance and Best Country Song and was named the 2007 Single of the Year by the Country Music Association Awards, its music video swept the CMT Music Awards in 2007.
But it also drew criticism for glorifying violence as a legitimate response to infidelity.
Underwood, who admitted that she had been a victim of cheating before, said she "wouldn't recommend doing any property damage... I'm a 'let it go, move on' kind of person".
This is now...
It's been a decade since Underwood, 32, won the fourth season of US reality singing show American Idol.
She's one of the rare champs who's enjoyed consistent post-show success and has since won an array of awards.
In March, Underwood welcomed her first child, a boy named Isaiah, with hockey-player husband Mike Fisher.
But motherhood hasn't dampened her hot streak either.
She was the big winner at the recent CMT Music Awards in June, taking home Video Of The Year and Female Video Of The Year for Something In the Water and Collaborative Video Of The Year for her Miranda Lambert duet Somethin' Bad. She now holds more awards than any other artist in the show's history.
"This is such an amazing blessing," she said on stage when receiving the fan-voted Video of the Year.
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