Back in 2011, aspiring country crooner Harper Grace received was seemed like the career-launching opportunity of her young lifetime: an invitation to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner” for stadium of 22,000 people at an FC Dallas pro soccer game. The performance made the 11-year-old famous, overnight — but not in the way she’d imagined or hoped. After things went horribly awry due to Grace’s inexperience and a slew of technical issues, vicious and endless bullying — online, at her school, and even by national press — ensued.
“It was the top story everywhere: ‘The worst national anthem ever,’ with my face plastered all over. There were over a million views in less than 24 hours,” the now 22-year-old Texan singer tells Yahoo Entertainment. “The first comment I read, after hearing my parents crying in the office of my childhood home, was ‘This is why abortion should be legal.’ You know, so my mom could have saved the day from having a horrible anthem, saved everyone’s ears! People were just so rude, so cruel, saying that I should kill myself and never sing again. And these are things that I’m reading as an 11-year-old, you know?”
For more on this story, please visit yahoo.com.