One of her earliest supporters. Lainey Wilson is now one of country music’s biggest stars, and many fans now know the story of how she got her start in Nashville, coming from small town Baskin, Louisiana and knowing almost no one in Music City when she first arrived. Lainey did have one important connection, though, an old friend of her grandfather who let her park her camper in his studio parking lot, who also had some connections and worked in the music industry. On the Just Being ERNEST podcast years back, Lainey talked about Jerry and how much he helped her in those early days: “I moved here in August of 2011…There was a guy from my hometown, his name was Jerry Cupit. He had some success in the ’90s with like Ken Mellons, Kevin Sharpe… And crazy story, my daddy’s daddy has always loved music, just wanted to support it any way he could. So in the ’70s he gave Jerry Cupit a few hundred bucks to help him move to Nashville and get started. And as a favor in return, Jerry let me live in his studio parking lot for free for those three years. So he was really my only contact that I knew.” Lainey has spoken before about how hard Jerry’s death was for her to deal with. They were close collaborators, writing over 300 songs together, getting together to write every single day for three years. Jerry wound up getting sick, and ultimately passed away, which Lainey called a very dark time, because they had obviously gotten very close. She shared more about it in her recent Netflix documentary Lainey Wilson: Keepin’ Country Cool, which gives fans an intimate look at her life as she juggles being a country music superstar with everything else she has going on outside of that, including detailing how she got here in the first place. Lainey says Jerry’s passing started a “dark season” of her life, and she felt lost because he was her first and only connection in Nashville, and without him, she really didn’t know what to do. In terms of anyone connected to the industry, he was the first person to really, truly believe in her and he was sure she was going to make it one day. “We realized, oh no, this is not good. That’s when I knew that he’s probably not gonna make it much longer. And he told me, he said, ‘I want you to keep going.’ And then he passed away. I just felt lost and lonely and scared, and it was a very, honestly, like a dark season of my life. I didn’t know which way to go. I didn’t know who to turn to, but I still knew that this was my calling, and I knew that I wasn’t gonna pack it up and go home. I knew that I needed to stick it out and I honestly kind of felt like, I owed it to myself, but I also owe it to him.” She also showed off a binder of old references she’d had different people write for her when she was just starting out, and Jerry’s was absolutely beautiful, and in hindsight, we now know he was right on the money, so to speak: “This is where I got people to write references, so Jerry wrote, ‘Lainey is a complete package. She sings, writes, and will be a superstar. Her talent will demand a place in the ranks of the major country music platform.’ That’s pretty cool. He spoke it.” That he did… most people that make it to Lainey’s level of success in entertainment have someone like Jerry who believes in them just as much, or even more, than they believe in themselves, and that was certainly Jerry for her. And like Lainey mentioned, she knew she was still going to do everything she could to make her dreams become a reality, and that she certainly did. Lainey shared the heartfelt video with the caption: “Jerry helped me find my way in Nashville. I carry a little piece of him with me every time I write.” She never took his help or belief for granted, and he knew she was a super star long before anyone else: View this post on Instagram You can watch the trailer here: The post Lainey Wilson Says She Went Through A Dark Season When Her Mentor Passed Away: “I Felt Lost, Lonely & Scared” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.