Maren Morris Pushes Back on Viral Misquote About ‘Leaving Country Music’

In 2023, Maren Morris did an interview with the Los Angeles Times that would go on to spark years of misunderstandings about her relationship with country music. After continued comments and online conversations questioning her place in the genre, she felt it was time to once again clarify what she really said in that conversation.

This time, she took matters into her own hands and spoke her truth in a nearly seven-minute-long video shared across social media. Morris began by calling attention to one of the headlines that really made waves and has stirred up endless buzz: “Maren Morris is getting the hell out of country music: ‘I’ve said everything I can say.’”

“For years I’ve seen moments on my videos or articles posted about me that say, she said she hates country music. And it’s exhausting because I can’t reply to all of them and be like, cite your sources. A couple years ago I did an interview, and this was the headline,” she said pointing to the harsh statement. “As you can imagine, quite an inflammatory headline and I was not a fan of it. The probably editor of the publication slapped that on there because they’re like, ‘This is going to get a lot of clicks.’ But nowhere in the article do I say that I’m getting the hell out of country music.’”

Despite having “pretty thick skin,” the Texas native admits it’s hard not to feel defeated when her words continue to get taken out of context, causing her to have to clarify time and time again that she wasn’t talking about country music as a genre during that interview with the Los Angeles Times. Instead, she was discussing the truth behind the business side of the career.

She has come to learn that getting criticism thrown her way is all part of living in the limelight, but those outside opinions will never change the fact that country music is and always have been a huge part of her life.

“I love country music full stop. It’s my home. I grew up loving it in Texas, being so proud that so many of my country heroes are from that state. It made me want to be a songwriter. My dad bought me an acoustic guitar and I taught myself how to play and write songs in my bedroom as a kid. And then I moved to Nashville and made my dreams come true.”

She continues, “And look, you’ve got to be prepared for criticism to be in this. Even when I released ‘My Church,’ criticism was pretty early. It was calling me blasphemer. People were like, ‘She’s disrespecting religion with this song and the church’” And it’s literally just a song about me loving driving around in my car, listening to music. That’s my version of church.”

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Still, that negativity has never stopped Morris from making the kind of music that she wants to make, especially when that involved her stepping beyond the confines of country music and experimenting with sounds of other genres.

“I always have from the jump of Hero, my first record and even to now, I’ve worked with a lot of different artists from other genres. I’ve been in The Highwomen. I’ve had the song ‘The Middle,’ it was my first sort of pop hit. I’ve kind of done everything in between, which is the fun part of this. And when people comment or see things or click bait, and that’s all they’re receiving from an article or whatever blog that’s repurposed in an interview where they’re not really showing my actual quotes, perception is a very real thing and it is wildfire.”

“I don’t even think it’s these people’s fault when they’re like, ‘She hates country music,’ because that’s what they’ve been fed,” she shared. “And I’m sure even this video now where I’m talking directly to you and not a publication will get repurposed and put onto every little blog and things will be taken out of context because there’s a bias and there’s also a demand for cliques, I think negative ones.”

The bottom line is that when Maren Morris opens up about her desire to want to be disconnected from country music, she’s referring to the business side of things. She has seen first-hand what it takes to “make it” in country music, having to “kiss the ring,” “always say thank you,” and turn a blind eye to certain things and she doesn’t want to be a part of that machine. Instead of conforming to this way of building a career, the “Dreamsicle” singer simply wants to “write songs and have fun and make this feel safer.”

“I think I even say in that article, when you love something, it’s okay to criticize it because you’re not doing it because you hate it. You’re doing that because you love it and you want to make it better. And I still have friends and program directors in country music that I talk to and understand where I’ve come from, but I also know that’s kind of a part of my life that it’s not a part of it anymore.”

No matter how many times Morris tries to clarify her words, people will still believe what they want to believe. But she encourages everyone to read beyond the stark headlines to find out what was really said before jumping to conclusions and writing harsh comments.

“I do love country music because it’s about storytelling and my heroes were truth tellers even when it was unpopular because country music should be for everybody. But the two sides of the coin with country music particularly is like, this is not just music. It is a way of life, which is a beautiful thing about it. But it is also like if you criticize any part of it, people will take offense because they’re like, ‘You’re not just criticizing music I like, you’re criticizing me.’ But I just want to clarify here, I was never talking about country music. I was talking really about the machine of the music industry, which is any artist will tell you more business than music at times.”

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Maren Morris still resides in Nashville, she still loves to make music with her friends and that isn’t something she’s willing to give up anytime soon. She has already earned hits throughout her career and while she is incredibly grateful for that, she has no intention of slowing down. In fact, she hopes to continue making music for decades to come.

“I do think when you love something and I love country music, I do think you should be allowed to have a say in how to make it better and it’s not in a way that’s shitting all over it…I think even The Chicks from the jump we’re always trying to make this safer for everyone and sometimes that can be absolutely misconstrued, but yeah, it is what it is,” she concluded.