Scotty McCreery Artistfacts

October 9, 1993
North Carolina native Scotty McCreery became the youngest male contestant to win American Idol when the 17-year-old took the title in season 10 of the reality singing contest in 2011. A few months later, he issued his debut album, Clear As Day, featuring his Idol coronation song, "I Love You This Big." He made history as the first country artist to debut at #1 with their first album on the all-genre Billboard 200 albums chart.
McCreery's parents originally wanted to name him Evan but changed their minds on the way to the hospital, opting for Scott Cooke instead.
Through his mother's side of the family, the singer is a distant cousin of MLB Hall of Famer Jim "Catfish" Hunter. The inspiration behind the Bob Dylan tune "Catfish," he was a pitcher for the Kansas City/Oakland Athletics and the New York Yankees in the '60s and '70s. McCreery was also a pitcher for his high school baseball team, but he bowed out to audition for Idol.
When McCreery was a child, his grandmother gave him a book about Elvis Presley, who became his earliest musical influence. Despite being a self-professed "Elvis freak," McCreery only later realized his second single, "The Trouble With Girls," shares its name with a 1969 Elvis movie.
He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2024 by one of his musical heroes, Josh Turner. McCreery auditioned for Idol with Turner's "Your Man," and also stayed in the game during Hollywood Week with a rendition of the country singer's seminal hit "Long Black Train."
McCreery independently released the single "Five More Minutes" in 2017 after he was dropped by his record label. It became the first song to chart on the Country Aircheck/Mediabase Top 50 without support from a label. That same year, he signed a deal with Triple Tigers Records/Sony Music Entertainment.
"Five More Minutes" inspired a pair of made-for-TV movies on the Hallmark Channel: Five More Minutes (2021) and Five More Minutes: Moments Like These (2022). Both films, executive produced by McCreery, follow women who are dealing with the loss of loved ones.
McCreery met his future wife, Gabi Dugal, in kindergarten. They started dating during their senior year of high school and tied the knot in 2018. They welcomed their first child, son Merrick "Avery" McCreery, in 2022.
McCreery's yellow Labrador Retriever, Moose, has his own Instagram page.
McCreery loves cigars and keeps stashes of them in his house in Raleigh, North Carolina, and in his Nashville apartment. He told Rolling Stone in 2024: "My granddaddy always smoked a pipe and he had a bird book, and I'd sit next to him and we'd look out his den and watch birds while he smoked. That'll be old man Scooter one day, just sitting in the den smoking my cigar."
At the time of his American Idol audition, McCreery was working as a bagger at Lowes Foods, a grocery store in his hometown of Garner, North Carolina.

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