Fan Requests Inspired Thomas Rhett to Record ‘Star of the Show’

“Star of the Show” may be Thomas Rhett’s latest smash hit, but the song has been circling the interwebs for years. Rhett wrote the song with his dad Rhett Akins just after marrying his wife Lauren and never knew quite when to cut it for his own record.

“‘Star of the Show’ has always been one of those songs that I have kind of kicked myself in the shins for not cutting on previous records,” reflected Rhett recently. “I think it just didn’t fit the first one. I think it was a little bit too far in sort of that throwback, R&B feel, but obviously, now that we’re talking about it, that’s kind of become somewhat of my staple piece as an artist. You know I think it just kind of slipped under the cracks on the second record, but my fans had always watched it on YouTube and been like, ‘Dude why are you not putting this on your albums?’”

After hearing fans ask for the song time and time again, the Georgia native decided to track down the demo, except there was one problem…

“I realized one day I was like, ‘hey maybe we should get the demo of that and try to figure out what we can do to make it better.’ And we all realized that there was no demo for the song,” he shared. “It literally just existed on YouTube. So the fact that my fans wanted it that bad and it still had not been recorded, they had been listening to on YouTube, it just made me feel like we got to record this song.”

The song, which appears on the deluxe version of his latest album Tangled Up, is currently sitting in the Top 5 at country radio. Take a listen to “Star of the Show” in the video below and be sure to add Rhett’s catalogue to your Spotify now.