Melissa Lawson, Nashville Star’s oldest contestant at 31, has wowed the studio audience and judges John Rich, Jewel and Jeffrey Steele every week since the competition began in early June with her big voice and sassy performances. But the mom of five boys, who is vying to win a recording contract, is also the show’s biggest loser — at least when it comes to her weight. Lawson has lost 70 lbs. since the birth of her fifth child eleven months ago — and 40 lbs. since she auditioned for the show in May.
It wasn’t the shot at a country music stardom that served as inspiration, but rather a simple question from her four year old: “Mommy, why are you fat?”
“That’s tough to hear,” admits Lawson, curled up on a sofa in a room of the Gaylord Opryland Resort, where contestants have been sequestered throughout the competition without family, friends and phones since May 24th. “Other than some joint trouble, I didn’t really have any health issues associated with my weight. But other family members did and I knew it was a matter of time.”
Lawson, who says she started gaining weight in high school and was 210 lbs. when she married her husband, recently performed Martina McBride’s “My Baby Loves Me Just the Way That I Am.” Thanking her husband for doing just that, she introduced the song by saying, “Love doesn’t only come in size 6!”
But Lawson knew there could be a little less of her for him to love and decided to stop thinking of weight loss as a race to an arbitrary finish line — “I have to lose 50 lbs. by next summer, or 75 lbs. by the reunion” — and make eating healthy and working out a new lifestyle.
“When I made the cast of Nashville Star, I had already lost almost 30 lbs. and I was committed,” she says. “I told [the producers] I really needed access to a gym. But there were so many of us [contestants] at first that it was just too difficult for the producers to do logistically. So, I walked the halls, up and down, and did what I could in my room.”
Eating healthy, it turns out, is trickier when you’re on a televised singing competition. “You don’t get to choose,” she says. “Everyone eats what is prepared by the catering department and someone really likes [cooking] Italian. I just have to choose really carefully and put in some extra time in the gym.”
Lawson’s dedication has paid off in more ways than one. “I love wardrobe day!” she says. “I love trying [clothes] on now. When I started the show, the stylists were getting clothes from plus-sized stores, then I got down to women’s sizes and last week I wore regular jeans — a size 14! I haven’t done that in years.”
On Monday’s episode of Nashville Star (9 p.m. ET on NBC), the singer and the other remaining contestants — Coffey, Gabe Garcia and Shawn Mayer — will enjoy hometown visits on the show’s final night of voting. The new Nashville Star will be named next week. – Kay West
John Russell/NBC
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