Kellie Pickler’s runaway mother was tracked down by media sources and interviewed by the Charlotte-Observer. Read the entire story here (subscription needed) Let’s hope this is the first step to peace…
On Kellie’s new album, ‘Small Town Girl’, Kellie Pickler sings ‘I Wonder’ to her mother, who disappeared eight years ago. She still wonders in interviews if her mother watched American Idol or if she voted for her.
“I watched every one of them, start to finish,” says Cynthia Morton. “I’d rewind them and watch again because that was the closest I’ve been to my baby.”
Initially refusing to be interviewed, she later agreed on the conditions she be identified by her maiden name.
“I don’t want to be abused by the public, by the media,” she says. “I have already been abused much of my life. I have started over. I have learned to stand on my own for the first time in my life, to be proud of who I am.”
Kellie was open about her childhood on American Idol.  She was raised predominantly by her paternal grandparents in Albemarle. Her dad was struggled with alcohol, drugs and the law and had been in and out of jail during her childhood. As for her mother, she had left when Kellie was two-years-old and returned for a brief two year stay when Kellie was ten. Kellie hadn’t seen her since.
Morton says she has had several abusive relationships. She was so severely beaten by one man, she had to learn to how to walk and talk again.
Through counseling, she says, she has come to understand domestic violence and speaks to battered women’s groups.
“This is my new life,” Morton says. “I don’t need a man. With my track record, I’m better off without one.”
Morton claims the media speculation about her have been hurtful, some just wrong.
She says she doesn’t drink alcohol, doesn’t do drugs. “I’m not as bad as they say. I just made bad choices.”
Morton, says she doesn’t need money: “I don’t want anything. I don’t want anything but to keep myself safe.”
She has a small circle of friends, usually spends holidays alone, and she sings at Christian events and in the choir of her nondenominational church.
Morton says she left Kellie when the girl was 2 in fear for her life due to spousal abuse, a statement supported by court filings during the custody dispute later.
Kellie has made statements that her mother was physically and mentally abusive to her during her childhood, a statement Morton denies. She admits she once left a scratch on Kellie’s arm when she tried to restrain her from getting out of a moving car.
After Kellie’s grandparents regained custody, Morton says she left.
“Why keep going in and out of court and keep dragging her through that? That’s not fair for a child’s life.”
From afar she kept track of her daughter.
Before “American Idol,” Morton went to the Sonic restaurant in Albemarle to see Kellie. Someone else took her order, but she saw Kellie there, from afar.
“She was pretty,” Morton says. “Looked like I used to look.”
She didn’t see Kellie again until early this year on American Idol.
Morton hasn’t tried to contact Kellie, but she asked the Observer to pass along an e-mail address and a short handwritten note.
Kellie was told privately Thursday that the Observer found her mother and was made aware of this story before publication, but did not comment on Thursday.
Morton listened to “I Wonder,” - Â praised by Rolling Stone magazine as a song that “just breaks your heart,” - for the first time last week. Afterward, she asked for this message to be passed along:
“Tell her I love her.”