Loretta Lynn’s Granddaughter Praises the ‘Vulnerability’ in Legend’s ‘My Husband’s Cheating on Me 24/7’ Songs (Exclusive)

Loretta Lynn, who is long remembered for her vulnerable songwriting in songs like “The Pill,” inspired her granddaughter Emmy Russell to use music as a creative outlet for her pain.

Russell, who is competing on this season of American Idol and currently in the Top 24, praised her grandmother’s ability to write about what she was going through — and says she only hopes to do the same with her music.

“Seeing how she was so confessional in her songs. She was probably known as ‘my husband’s cheating on me 24/7’ and she stayed. I think that it was the vulnerability, that piece that I picked up on as a writer,” Russell, 25, tells PEOPLE exclusively.

“You really can only connect with people whenever you really are yourself. And so I think that’s what I learned — how she serves the audience, but with her truth,” she continues.

Russell — who recovered from disordered eating in the recent years — took that path with her song “Skinny” and it landed her on American Idol.

“I think I learned with ‘Skinny,’ even though I have a couple songs that I really love and relate to, ‘Skinny”s the one that I’m going to play because it feels like people connected to that one,” she says. “Just being open with my experiences in life, hoping that people don’t feel so alone.”

When Russell wrote “Skinny,” she was still in recovery and felt a calling to sing about her experience. Now, it brings her healing.

“Whenever I wrote ‘Skinny,’ I felt a weight of responsibility. I don’t need to go back to this. I know it’s bad for me. And so the more that I sing it, it’s almost like the more that I’m delivering myself as I’m singing it and I’m like, ‘Oh, OK. Now I got that feeling out. Now I am above it,'” she says, adding that it’s about “finding a creative outlet for all your pain and beauty.”

If Lynn — who died in October 2022 — were still here, Russell says she would be “really proud of me.”

“She’d be just like, ‘About time, honey.’ That’s all I hear her saying. ‘About time, honey. You have it in you.’ She used to always tell me — and I say this a lot — ‘God doesn’t give a plumber tools not to use.’ And so it’s like, if God gives you a gift, don’t just throw it away,” she says.

Some of her fondest memories with her grandmother are when she lived with her and enjoyed the simple things.

“I lived with her for about four years, five years. I would lay on her bed and just watch a movie with her and she says something funny. I feel like a lot of those times of holding my hand just saying, ‘I love you, honey.’ Or her being next to me on the stage, looking at me with her proud eyes,” she says.

When asked if she would sing one of her grandmother’s songs on Idol, Russell says she’s “open to it.”

“I love ‘Coal Miner’s Daughter,’ just because it’s her story. I would probably have to change it up,” she says.

She continues, “I just love that one so much. Since she is gone, I love the line, ‘Nothing left here anymore except the memory of the coal miner’s daughter.’ That line now that she’s gone … it hits me.”

Looking ahead, win American Idol or not, Russell hopes to continue connecting with people through her music.

“I just want to keep on creating truthful art. I just want to keep on writing, and whether that’s singing the song or singing it and writing for other people, I want to do this. This American Idol experience has solidified, ‘Oh no, I want to do this for the rest of my life,'” she says.