When Jacquie Lee lost her best friend and fellow The Voice alum, Christina Grimmie to a deadly shooting earlier this year, she found comfort in an unexpected place.
“A homeless woman randomly approached me outside of a Starbucks shortly after Christina passed. I was having a really hard time getting back into my routine and my normal life,” she told Popdust in a recent interview. “She started to engage in a conversation and open up about how she was dealing with the death of her mother. She didn’t have a bad outlook on anything, it was more of a comforting outlook, and she wasn’t crazy or on drugs. I just felt like I was supposed to meet her for a reason.”
She asked me if I had ever dealt with death and if I believed in a heaven. Surprisingly, I started opening up to her within seconds. All of the details of the pain of loss and faith came spilling out of my mouth. Before I had to leave, she left me with the words, ‘Don’t worry, she is in a better place I promise you. She’s somebody’s angel now.'”
The encounter inspired Jacquie, who placed second on The Voice season 5 in 2013, to write the ballad “Somebody’s Angel.” In the official video, Jacquie uses her own hand drawings combined with news footage to remember the great cultural icons who died this year. She also notes devastating events such as Hurricane Matthew, the Nice terrorist attack and the Orlando shooting (which happened only hours after Christina was killed in the same city).
“I wanted it to be as real as possible,” Jacquie told Popdust, “When all of these tragedies happened, we all couldn’t believe what we were seeing when we turned on the T.V. or the computer while watching with friends and family. It’s something we’re all collectively struggling with and I wanted to make sure that was represented in the video.”
Jacquie and Christina became good friends when they performed together on the official The Voice tour in the summer of 2013. Pre-order the track at iTunes now.
Watch Jacquie Lee’s haunting “Somebody’s Angel” below.