Jared Blake Takes on Drunk Driving in Powerful ‘Don’t Let Her Be Gone’ Video [Exclusive Premiere]
Former The Voice contestant Jared Blake gets serious about drunk driving in his new video for "Don't Let Her Be Gone," inspired by an experience drawn from his real life.
In the clip above, which is premiering exclusively via Taste of Country, the singer — who competed on Season 1 of The Voice in 2011 and made the semi-finals as a member of Team Blake — stars opposite his real-life wife, Jennifer, in a powerful warning about the dangers of drinking and then getting behind the wheel.
The video shows the couple having a fight, after which his wife goes to a friend's house to cool off with a glass of wine. Then they hit a local club for dancing and more drinks, and tragedy ensues when she gets in the car to head back home to her husband, who's been texting her photos all night to remind her of how good their life together really is.
Ray Stephenson, Buddy Owens and John Osborne wrote "Don't Let Her Be Gone," which Stephenson produced with Eric Landes. Blake based the video on a real-life accident he and Jennifer got into on May 9, 2017, when a drunk driver struck their car head-on while going the wrong way on a Nashville interstate. She detailed the accident in a Facebook post, sharing horrifying pictures of their mangled truck and expressing thanks for the fact that they survived.
"The pain of watching her leave in an ambulance, and not knowing if I'd ever see her alive again was the heartbreak so many feel for so many reasons," Blake says. "It was like watching her walk away from our love with nothing to say."
"Don't Let Her Be Gone" provides Blake with the chance to combine his music and outreach platform. In 2015 he and Jennifer founded Live to Be, a program that allows him to visit schools around the country and tell his story of addiction and redemption. The program "was established with the goal to meet the growing needs of today's youth to find their unique path, free from the use of drugs or alcohol."
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