Country Star Chase Rice Says I Want to Choose Jesus

Country star Chase Rice opened up on the Take Back Ocala podcast about his faith, saying "I want to choose Jesus. I want to choose Jesus today… in this moment, in this struggle". The interview, reported by Whiskey Riff on 3 November and picked up by Wide Open Country on 7 November, is the most open Rice has ever been about the trauma that shaped him and the faith that is remaking him.

Rice revealed that he was the victim of sexual assault as a young child, an experience that left him carrying shame and guilt for years and that fed the addictions he later battled. He says turning to Jesus took the shame's power away. "When that shame creeps in, I talk to it… 'Nope. I choose Jesus. I choose Jesus right now.' When I do that, it's like the shame has no power."

Chase Rice Opens Up About Childhood Trauma and Shame

There is a particular kind of courage in saying these things out loud, on a podcast, with your name attached. Rice is a country star, a former NASCAR pit-crew member turned singer, known for the hit "Bench Seat" and for the bro-country sound that made him famous. None of that protects a person from shame. If anything, fame gives shame more places to hide.

What Rice described was not a single moment of healing but a practice, something he does again and again. When the shame creeps in, he talks to it. He names it. He chooses Jesus in that moment, in that struggle, right now. The repetition matters, because it tells you this is not a story about a problem solved once and for all. It is a story about a man who has found a way to fight back, one moment at a time.

His honesty has struck a chord because so many people carry the same secret. Childhood trauma, shame, addiction: these are the things people do not say at dinner tables or in church pews. When a public figure says them plainly, it gives everyone else permission to breath. Other public figures have found the same freedom in speaking openly about faith and brokenness, as covered in Palesa Madisakwane: I Was in Hell Before Returning to Faith.

Chase Rice Faith Journey Began Around 2017

Rice traces his walk with God to around 2017, and he puts it in a sentence that sounds like a songwriter wrote it: "Redemption is a way cooler story than getting it right". It is the kind of line that could only come from someone who has tried getting it right and discovered it does not work.

The faith shift explains his move away from the bro-country sound that made him famous. His album Eldora, released in September 2025, carries the marks of that change, and the man who made it sounds like someone who has stopped performing a life and started living one. The music is still country. The man behind it is different.

That kind of change does not happen by accident. It happens when a person decides, day after day, to choose something else. Rice's choice, repeated in the present tense, is the heart of his testimony, and it is why his story is resonating far beyond country music. Testimonies of lives turned around have always travelled furthest when they are honest about the darkness, as reported in Bear Grylls Speaks on Russell Brand Conversion After Verdict.

Why Chase Rice Choosing Jesus Matters to His Fans

For Rice's fans, the interview changes the way they hear his songs. The voice is the same, the guitar is the same, but now they know what the songs are carrying. A man who was hurt as a child, who lived with shame and addiction, and who found a way through it by choosing Jesus in the moment, again and again.

For people who have never listened to Chase Rice, the story still lands, because shame is not a country-music problem. It is a human problem. The person who hears Rice say "the shame has no power" and thinks, "maybe it could lose its power over me too", has heard the most important thing in the interview. The music world has seen other artists make the same turn toward faith, as covered in Israel Houghton Brings Gospel Fest to Tura Today, and the pattern is always the same: the testimony matters more than the fame.

What Rice has done is refuse to let his past have the last word. He was a victim as a child, and he says so plainly. He carried shame, and he says so plainly. And then he says the sentence that changes everything: "I want to choose Jesus". Not once, in the past tense, but today, in this moment, in this struggle.

What Happens Next for Chase Rice

The interview will not be the last word on Rice's faith, because faith, by his own account, is a daily choice rather than a single decision. His fans will be watching to see what the next album sounds like, what the next tour feels like, and whether the man on stage keeps choosing Jesus in public the way he says he chooses him in private.

The deeper question is what his honesty unlocks for others. Every time a well-known person talks about childhood trauma and shame, someone listening finds the courage to talk about their own. Rice's words may do more good in living rooms and counselling sessions than they ever will on a chart.

And that may be the real story here. Not a country star finding religion, but a wounded man finding a way to live with his wounds, and telling the truth about it so that other wounded people can find their way too. The next time shame creeps in, he will talk to it again. He has already told us what he will say.

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