Chase Rice Says I Want to Choose Jesus After Trauma Loss and Shame

When shame creeps in, Chase Rice talks back to it with one short sentence. “I choose Jesus right now,” he says, in an interview reported by Whiskey Riff, and he says it again and again until the shame loses its power. It is a small sentence from a country singer who has lived much of his life in public, and it is the sentence he now uses to hold his own story together.

Rice, the country singer known for “Bench Seat,” who co-wrote Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” spoke about his faith in a recent interview on the Take Back Ocala podcast, Whiskey Riff reports. He said his faith has been the driving force behind a change in priorities over the past five years or so, and he “has been letting God lead the way in his life since 2017 or so,” as Whiskey Riff puts it.

The interview is described only as recent, and no recording date is given in the sources read for this article. Rice was a Tar Heels linebacker, worked on a NASCAR pit crew, and was a Survivor runner-up, Whiskey Riff and the YouTube episode description both report.

He discussed being the victim of sexual assault at a young age, which, Whiskey Riff reports, “saddled him with shame, guilt, and addictions” and became too much to bear. The YouTube episode description says: “Chase is a survivor of childhood sexual abuse,” and this article reports the matter only in those attributed terms.

No further detail about the abuse appears in either opened source, so this article adds none, names no one, and gives no dates. He lost his father and football in the same year, followed by “a decade of addiction and wrong roads” in Nashville, the YouTube description says.

Whiskey Riff dates the turning point to 2013, when “all of his vices were catching up to him, and his father passed away, and it all seemed to happen at once.”

Chase Rice I Choose Jesus Shame Faith Interview

Rice’s answer to shame, as reported by Whiskey Riff, is not a long argument but a choice made in the moment. “When that shame creeps in, I talk to it,” he said in the Take Back Ocala interview, as reported by Whiskey Riff.

“I’m like, ‘It’s all good man. Nope,’” he said, as reported by Whiskey Riff.

“‘I choose Jesus. I choose Jesus right now,’” he continued, as reported by Whiskey Riff.

“When I do that, it’s like the shame has no power,” he added, in the same interview as reported by Whiskey Riff.

He also spoke about trying to fix himself and finding that he could not do it alone, Whiskey Riff reports. That admission is the hinge of his story.

“Redemption is a way cooler story than getting it right,” Rice said, as reported by Whiskey Riff. The line fits a man who does not claim to have lived a straight path, and who is not asking listeners to admire a perfect record.

“I just know that I want to choose Jesus. I want to choose Jesus today,” he said, as reported by Whiskey Riff. He added that he wants to choose Jesus in the moment, in the struggle, and in the good thing, and that if he is doing that, he cannot go wrong there.

For years, Rice held his own career back because he feared being found out, Whiskey Riff reports, and he worried about what would happen if he became famous and people learned who he really was. He felt he could not sing about God because “I’m not worthy,” Whiskey Riff quotes him as saying.

That feeling is reported here as his own account of his own feelings, not as a claim about what others thought. He turned to Jesus “thanks to some well-placed people in his life,” Whiskey Riff reports.

Chase Rice Faith Since 2017 Turning Point 2013 Music Career

The YouTube episode description adds, as a single-origin detail, that “how men praying over him at Refuge became one of the most healing moments of his life.” This article does not expand on what Refuge is, because neither source explains it.

His music changed with him, Whiskey Riff reports. He stepped away from the bro-country style that made him a household name, and the albums I Hate Cowboys & All Dogs Go To Hell and Go Down Singin’ were deliberate turns toward an authentic, traditional sound.

Eldora was released in September 2025, Whiskey Riff reports, as background only, and this is not a story about a worship album. No church Rice attends, no claim about sobriety or therapy, no new album and no recovery programme appears in the opened sources, and none is claimed here.

Many listeners will beleive they know Chase Rice from a radio hit or a television show, and the interview reported by Whiskey Riff asks them to listen again.

Other stories of faith found later in life can be read in American Idol Clark Beckham Felt Arms of God Amid Family Upheaval and in Matt Barnes Found Faith at 45 After Old Church Invitation on Candace Cameron Bure Podcast. Faith carried onto a public stage is also at the heart of Jonathan Roumie Says Playing the Crucifixion Left Him Weeping in Church and Today: Danny Gokey Urges Fans Not to Delay Talking About Jesus After Neighbour Dies.

The next time shame creeps in, Rice has already told listeners what he will say, and the sentence is short enough to remember. Whether it holds for him in the next struggle, the next good thing, and the next ordinary day is the question his interview leaves open — and it is a question he answers, for now, one choice at a time.

But the most surprising part of this story is yet to come — keep reading.