Mindy McCready Defends Decision to Flee with Son

Published
ABC News

Former country star Mindy McCready says she believes she did the right thing by recently taking her five-year-old son away from the custody of his grandmother in Florida and fleeing to Arkansas in violation of a court order. 

McCready told ABC News she believes her actions were in the best interest of her son Zander. "What I did was to protect my child, and there's not a person in the world that's going to tell me that that is wrong," she said.

The FBI had treated the case as a "parental abduction," but the 36-year-old singer said she would "not ever think that me taking my own child, that I carried for nine months, that I gave birth to in the hospital by myself would ever be breaking the law." 

Zander has been in the custody of McCready's mother Gayle Inge, but the two have been engaged in a custody battle over the boy for years. McCready has accused her mother of allegedly physically and mentally abusing the boy but Inge has denied the claims. Zander is currently in foster care.

McCready, who is currently pregnant with twins, said  her son was extremely upset when U.S. Marshalls located her in Arkansas last Friday and came to forcibly remove him. "He was screaming, 'Please don't touch me, please don't touch me, please don't touch my mommy." McCready said. An official with the U.S. Marshalls said authorities used standard operating procedures when taking Zander into custody and had a social worker with them.

You can catch McCready's full interview on ABC's 20/20 Friday at 10 p.m.