Overview
- What Mattered Most, co-written with biographer David Ritz, lays out Herndon’s account of being raped by a Star Search staffer early in his career.
- He says a second staffer he trusted told him to stay quiet, which deepened years of self-blame.
- He writes that the night introduced him to meth, fueling decades of addiction, severe mental health struggles, and several suicide attempts.
- Recent interviews and the book detail his recovery through therapy, faith, 12-step work, new clarity from 2020 diagnoses, and a traumatic arrest he says reshaped his life.
- He frames the memoir as advocacy for male survivors, as he continues life with his husband, Alex Schwartz, and his LGBTQ work in country music.