Country music star Maren Morris is coming to her own defense as a woman in a male-dominated industry.
“The choices I have made over the years, being a woman in music, especially country music, over the years, is very calculated,” Morris, 35, said in a video shared via TikTok on Friday, January 9. “I was very luckily successful in country music. I put my first song out, ‘My Church,’ and it ended up being added a f*** ton on country radio and never went No. 1 but was really big at the time. I got a Grammy for it.”
She continued, “I was having, like, the best year of my life professionally, um, but I was also starting to see — my first album, Hero, with “My Church,” came out in June of 2016 and [Donald] Trump won in November of 2016. So my entire, like, success of my first record was under this first year of Trump’s reign. So weirdly everything felt very political, even though, like, no one cared that much before.”
Morris went on to explain that for the “last 10 years” of her career she has been navigating country music under the “Trump presidency, [former president Joe] Biden, then Trump again,” explaining that “it’s been quite interesting to see the country music space become very politicized.”
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“And the last few years I have definitely taken moves during Covid, post all of that — I’ve gotten divorced, I’m, like, a single mom now and I’m sort of, like, in my own weird music space,” she added. “It’s really heartbreaking because I love my Texas roots, I love country music, I love Nashville – I live here [and] I have not lived anywhere else in the last 15 years — but it’s been very hot. Like, no one is very friendly.”
Us Weekly confirmed in October 2023 that Morris filed for divorce from her then-husband Ryan Hurd after five years of marriage. The country music star cited “irreconcilable differences” as the reason for the pair’s split in documents obtained by Us. Prior to their split, the former couple welcomed their son, Hayes, in March 2020.
@marenmorris Replying to @Kevin Smith
While Morris said on Friday that while “some people are cool” in the country music scene, “it’s been very dicey at these award shows and s***,” adding, “I don’t really go to them anymore, but it’s been very heated.”
“But you cannot be a full song writer and, you know, reflect reality and live through song without being political,” she continued. “Like, I’m sorry, it is what it is … I try to be kind, I try to be benevolent, but there are people and energies in the sphere of my work the last few years that have really put me off. So, I’ve stepped away in certain facets. But I still love country music.”
Morris then gave a shoutout to her loyal fanbase before admitting that she has “lost a lot of fans over the years because of my viewpoints.” (Morris was involved in a highly-publicized feud with Jason Aleadon and Brittany Aldean in 2022 after Brittany made controversial comments about gender affirming care for trans youth.)
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“I think that’s fair,” Morris said of people deciding not to listen to her music because of her personal and political views. “If you don’t agree with me, you can’t enjoy my music because of my viewpoints, you’re absolutely allowed to do that.”
She continued, “But I am only here for an iteration of revolution around the sun, a couple, and so I do feel like I have sacrificed a lot of my mental health, my financial standing, my family, just because I am so deeply concerned and uncomfortable with the weird status quo of country music.”
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