Lainey Wilson Speaks Out About Stereotypes Surrounding Country Life: “It’s Like, the Best Thing and the Worst Thing”

It might seem that Lainey Wilson became a country music star overnight, but the truth is – she worked tirelessly for over a decade to get her footing in the music industry. That hard work and determination eventually paid off as she won her first Grammy and was named Entertainer of the Year not once but twice. Still, with Wilson watching her stardom go international, she never forgot where she came from. Growing up in a small town, she recently explained how city people have the wrong outlook on country folks. 

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Before her debut album and first tour, Wilson was an aspiring artist living in Baskin, Louisiana. With her mother a schoolteacher and her father a farmer, the country singer knew nearly all her neighbors as the town only had 170 people. “Where I’m from, it’s really just like a big farming community. Like my daddy farms corn, wheat, soybeans, oats. Very blue-collar town. We don’t even have a red light. We have a caution light.” 

Appearing on the No Filter podcast, Wilson admitted it wasn’t always great living in a small town since “everybody knows everybody. It’s like, the best thing and the worst thing … it’s like they’re there when you need ’em, and they’re there when you don’t. They’re just there.”

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Lainey Wilson Reveals The “Kind Of People” She Is From

Given the closeness of the community, Wilson agreed that people from the city often see them as reclusive. But according to the singer, it was the complete opposite. No matter if a person was from just around the corner or an entire state away, she promised, “My folks, especially, they’re the kind of people who would get a call in the middle of the night, and they’d go help the neighbor. I mean, they would give you the shirt off their back. That’s the kind of people that I’m from.”

And for those still needing a reminder of the road that led Wilson to country music – she recalled the rejection and failure that met her along the way. “I tried out for ‘American Idol’ probably seven times. Tried out for ‘The Voice’ a handful of times. And walked up and down Music Row, knocked on doors, passed out CDs.”

Today, Wilson may be selling out arenas and winning major awards, but the lessons she learned growing up in a small Louisiana town continue to guide and shape her future.

(Photo by Gilbert Flores/Variety via Getty Images)