Though singer-songwriter Lainey Wilson has become one of the hottest country stars on the planet, it wasn’t long ago she was striving to get noticed in Nashville and auditioning seven times for “American Idol.” Now, nearly four years after finally scoring her first Billboard country music hit with “Things a Man Oughta Know,” one of the cool twists of fate for Wilson has been the close friendship she’s forged with “Idol” judge Luke Bryan, she told CMT’s Cody Alan on January 25, 2025.

Shortly after performing on the season 21 “Idol” finale with Jelly Roll in May 2023, Wilson told Country Countdown USA, “I finally made it on ‘American Idol. I tried out 7 times. I took the long way around, but finally made it on ‘American Idol.’ I never made it through. I never made it past the first round.”

But Wilson’s getting last laugh, from winning the 2024 Grammy for Best Country Album to her friendship with Bryan, who was shocked to learn the show had passed her up so many times.

Lainey Wilson Says Luke Bryan Will Now Answer Her Calls at Any Hour

Though Wilson never got a callback from “Idol” producers while she was striving to hit it big, she said Bryan will now answer her calls at any time. During an interview on “CMT Hot 20,” as seen in the above clip, she told host Cody Alan that she has forged a special connection with the country superstar.

“Luke has become a dear friend of mine, he really has,” Wilson told Alan. “He’s a cheerleader of mine, and he’s somebody I could go to — I could call him and it does not matter what time of day and he would answer the phone. He’s a good dude.”

Over the last several months, the country stars have spent a good deal of time together, first co-hosting the 2024 CMA Awards with Bryan and Peyton Manning. They were also both part of CBS’ New Year’s Eve countdown show that former “Idol” judge Keith Urban hosted in Nashville, and in mid-January, Wilson was part of Bryan’s 10th annual Crash My Playa music festival in Mexico.

But in addition to getting close with Wilson, Bryan has also become good friends with her boyfriend, former NFL player Delvin “Duck” Hodges.

“I mean, anytime I’ve been around Lainey,” Bryan told ABC News Radio in November, “she’s just kind of one of the boys and one of the girls, you know? She’s just a great person to be around and (I’ve started) to spend a little more time with her boyfriend, Duck. He and I, we chat a couple of times a week. So, yeah, we’re all family now.”

Luke Bryan Admits ‘We Don’t Always Get It Right’ on ‘Idol’

When Bryan, who’s been a judge on “Idol” since 2018, learned that Wilson was rejected seven times by “Idol” producers before her rise to fame, he was shocked.

In November 2023, Bryan told Country Countdown USA, “I didn’t know that. That was the first time I heard that, but I’ll go see my producers today and find out what happened! I’m glad she didn’t take the ‘Idol’ letdown to heart. It also shows we don’t always get it right.”

Wilson told Country Countdown USA that she also tried out for “The Voice,” with no success, but insisted, “I’m grateful my story ended the way that it did.”

In May 2023, the “Heart Like a Truck” hitmaker told People, “I’ve known that this is my calling, and there’s nothing else that I want to do, that I can do. I’ve always just been like, ‘No plan B, this is it.’ I feel like that time that I’ve had to prepare, I don’t know… If it happened when I wanted it to, I don’t know that I would have been ready.”