Harper Grace isn't walking down the aisle without her father's blessing. After faking an engagement to promote her new single "If Daddy Says No," she revealed that the song and the stunt helped her navigate a very real challenge: when her father didn't approve of the man she was dating.
"I've always been incredibly close with my dad, and this particular relationship just didn't hold him in the highest regard," Harper told Country Now in a recent interview. "They had no respect for my father and his upbringing with me, and, quite frankly, for being my dad. He was an amazing dad, and this guy was so disrespectful, and I was caught up in it all."
When the idea of sharing this experience with her fans by faking an engagement came to her, Harper couldn't resist.
"Some people might think I'm crazy for faking my own engagement," she admitted. "But I was so drawn to the artistic perspective of it because the song means so much to me."
Indeed, for Harper, the song is a retelling of Taylor Swift's hit "Love Story," where the singer is also in a romance that her parents don't approve of.
"It's like the darker, traumatic side of 'Love Story,' instead of the usual happy-ending romance where he gets down on one knee and all that stuff happens," she explained.
The experience was certainly cathartic for Harper, but she had her fans fooled for quite a while, announcing her "engagement" on Jan. 15, a month before revealing the truth. As she wrote at the time, posing with a massive diamond ring and a man whose face wasn't in the shot, "Big news."
Fans wasted no time in wishing her congratulations.
"I cannot believe my other favorite girl is engaged!!!" one fan wrote. "I am so, so very happy for you! The ring is absolutely beautiful."
And when Harper revealed the truth, another fan lamented, "Can't believe you did this to us!!!"
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