Jo Dee Messina Is Back—and Getting Real About Life, Growth and Starting Over on Upcoming Album “Bridges” (Exclusive)

Tricia DespresFri, May 1, 2026 at 9:45 PM UTC

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Jo Dee MessinaCredit: Madison Sharp -

Jo Dee Messina opens up about balancing motherhood, personal growth, and her return to music after a decade

Her new album Bridges explores themes of forgiveness, healing, and resilience inspired by her life experiences

Messina reflects on lessons learned, including recovery from cancer and mentoring young female country artists

It took two years and five days a week for Jo Dee Messina to find herself again.

"It's leg day, but I am going to throw in a little infrared sauna later," Messina, 55, tells PEOPLE. "I have a trainer because she holds me accountable. I have to train every day or else I just get out of the habit of doing it."

And while the discipline has certainly paid off physically, Messina is the first to admit that she's still working on her mental game. "I'm exhausted," she admits. "I'm pouring out and pouring out and pouring out."

It's a feeling many can relate to, especially for those finding themselves in a season of life where caring for others often comes before caring for themselves.

"It's hard when you've got two kids at two different ages with two different interests, so you get pulled here and there — and you come last," she says. "You sit down and say, 'Am I invisible? Do I matter?'"

They are common questions — but perhaps more surprising coming from a chart-topping, two-time Grammy-nominated country star. But that's just what continues to make Messina so relatable.

"My life is not glamorous when I'm at home," she says. "I'm picking up after the dog… and then I'm dragging my kids to hockey practice at five in the morning without hair and makeup done. I mean… I raise my kids. You know what I mean? I'm involved in their life. I volunteer at their schools."

It's this very real life and the very real questions that remain that Messina tackles over the course of her new album Bridges, a stunning collection of truths set to songs, due out June 5 and an album that most certainly cements Messina's legendary status in country music. "You can hear the guts," she says of her first studio album in over a decade.

There's also plenty of lessons to be learned woven within the 11-track album. "I'm not saying don't forgive, because it's important for us to forgive those who have hurt us because that takes the weight off of us," she says of the message behind the album's current single "Some Bridges" that she wrote alongside Kat Higgins and James T. Slater. "But you can forgive from the opposite side of the bridge."

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The "Heads Carolina, Tails California" singer laughs.

"This is about saving yourself, so you have the ability to heal, to love, to live, and all that is done through forgiveness."

It's a perspective that Messina says hasn't come easy. "You can love someone without letting them destroy you," she says. "Love doesn't have to look like submitting yourself to constant abuse. You got to get to my age to figure that out. I'm just letting the young ones know."

'Letting the young ones know' has always been important to Messina, who says she has had many conversations with young female country artists about the professional potholes they may encounter.

"I have walked it," says Messina. "I don't want them to hurt like I hurt or feel the guilt that I felt for sometimes having to close the door. I don't want them to feel the shame."

Jo Dee Messina's BridgesCredit: Dreambound Records

In many ways, it all circles back to the album cut "Can Anybody," a song that encapsulates all the questions still floating under that red hair of hers — and questions that have far from easy answers.

"I still have selfish thoughts, and I still have ambition about certain things, and I sometimes sit with those things and then they consume me," she says. "That's when I put my focus on God. And then all of a sudden, there comes the peace and the joy and the grace and all the things He promises."

That perspective has only deepened in recent years, especially following Messina's cancer diagnosis in 2017. (She later went into remission.) "I'm doing well enough to only have to go for checkups once a year," she says. "But yes, it's still a day-to-day thing."

on People

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”