Five-time CMA Award winner Maren Morris is getting real about inclusivity and how important it is for the country music scene. In a written piece for Billboard, Morris reveals that she has an issue with the backlash some country music stars face for voicing their opinions. She also refers to inclusivity as being “good for business.”
Morris wrote, “I grew up being a huge country music fan, especially of people like The Chicks. Watching their career spiral in such a ridiculous, unfair way was always in my mind—it doesn’t leave your brain once you witness these idols of yours being so unfairly criticized and their careers, at least at the time, ending just for exercising their rights. There is this pressure to stay silent in country music, I think, because of what happened to The Chicks. Artists just look at it like, ‘It’s good for business to shut the f–k up.’ And that just never really sat well with me.”
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The article continued, “I think that’s why I’ve become a little bit of a rebellious adolescent in country. In some ways, there’s good in that; you want things to be better, you want everyone to be on the same page, you want everyone to be equally treated. There’s this passion there. But there’s also that sort of insanity and delusion of thinking you can do it all yourself. It’s ridiculous and kind of an almost white savior complex way of thinking: ‘I’m going to change it all from the inside—me, myself, and I.’ I’ve had to really take a step back and realize how to not center myself in this conversation every f–king time.”
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As the write-up goes on, Morris discusses the LGBTQ community and their place in country music. She wrote, “The way the country music industry has treated LGBTQ people has been awful — there’s been almost no representation. There are people like Ty Herndon, who wasn’t able to come out until he was basically not in the industry anymore. But there is progress being made: T.J. Osborne, one of my closest friends, came out a couple years ago, and there’s such support behind him because it’s like, ‘Yeah, it doesn’t matter.’
Morris is a big supporter of the LGBTQ community and has recently shown her support for drag queens, even introducing her son to a drag performer. The Grammy winner was also once a guest judge on a fairly recent episode of RuPaul’s Drag Race. On the show, she issued an apology for country music’s perceived treatment of the LGBTQ community.
Morris wraps up the piece by saying, “For myself, I’m getting out of the sort of game of being the hall monitor of country music, even if I’m probably setting myself up for failure. Everything I’ve done has not been in vain; I’ve been so bowled over by the acceptance and positivity from the LGBTQ community. But I feel like I cannot look at the bad apples anymore. I’m done giving into what they want, which is attention.”
Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for Pilgrimage Music & Cultural Festival