Country music singer Conner Smith has been in the headlines plenty across 2025, and sadly that is because he was involved in a tragedy.
Smith, 25, was given a misdemeanor citation by the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department after he struck and killed 77-year-old Dorothy Dobbins at around 7:30 p.m. on June 8.
Billboard reported that Dobbins was in a marked crosswalk when she was hit.
The outlet reported that Smith was determined to not be under the influence or distracted by his phone during the incident. Also, a tree that “substantially obstructed the view of the crosswalk” has since been removed.
The singer recently sat down for an interview with “The Upload with Brooke Taylor” podcast and he opened up about what the tragedy was like for him.
“It was so out of nowhere,” Smith said. “Just in a moment, your entire … like a tornado runs through your house, and there’s so much grief and there’s so much trauma from that intense, intense trauma.
“There’s a darkness in that, you just can’t — there’s no words, right?” he added. “It felt like a tornado just blowing through my house. You don’t have a concept of reality and what is going on, and all you have is the people you love, and the people that are around you.”
Smith revealed that he turned his phone off for a month and “locked” himself inside at his parents’ house in the aftermath of it all.
He returned to the public eye on July 31 with a performance at the Grand Ole Opry.
“Tonight, I am going to perform again, and the truth is, in the very first months of tragedy, I found it hard to imagine ever stepping on a stage again,” he wrote on social media. “The moment tragedy came, I knew that my heart had no way to process it.
Smith wrote that he “stayed isolated from the world,” in the days that followed the incident.
“I spent most of my time with friends who had stopped by the house, or just me and Jesus,” he wrote. “I turned off my phone, and the world, and simply guarded my mind, processing the pain with people around me.”
Earlier in July he also returned to social media to address the incident.
“Four weeks ago, I was involved in a tragic vehicle accident that resulted in the loss of a life,” Smith wrote on Instagram earlier this month. “Not a day has gone by that I haven’t grieved, prayed, and mourned for Ms. Dobbins and her family. My heart is broken in a way I’ve never experienced, and I still struggle to fully process the weight of it all. I ask that you continue to lift the Dobbins family up in prayer by name, asking for God’s peace to surround them each day.
“Out of respect for everyone involved and to give space for grieving, I made the decision to step away from shows these past few weeks,” he added. “I have always found that making music and playing shows is a place of healing for me — but for this moment, it was important for me to take time away.
“I’m thankful to serve a God who is near to the brokenhearted, and I have leaned on him every step of the way,” he added. “Through tragedy, I have learned that God is more faithful than I could have ever known before.”
Smith scored his breakthrough in 2021 with the song “I Hate Alabama.” Billboard said that Smith made his first appearance on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 last year when his song “Creek Will Rise,” made it to 89th.