Megan Moroney Tells Drew Barrymore She Nearly Quit Music Before Her Breakthrough

Megan Moroney is one of the hottest names in country music right now, but there was a time when she was ready to give it all up and move back home to Georgia. Sitting down with Drew Barrymore on The Drew Barrymore Show, the country star opened up about those early doubts, her rise to fame, and the therapeutic environment she now tries to create for fans at her live shows.

Barrymore looked to Moroney with admiration and pride as she gushed over her increasing list of accomplishments and then asked if her many feats have been a strong reassurance that she’s on the right path in life.

“This is my third album and I feel like I’ve just kind of been chipping away and little things happen over time where I’m like, ‘wow, this is crazy,” Moroney explained. “Like the Am I Okay? Tour, and then to have a number one album, I’m like, oh, it must be working because all these little wins become a big win eventually. And then you wake up one day and you have the number one album and it’s like, when did that even happen?”

The “Medicine” singer admitted it’s still a bit hard to wrap her head around the fact how far she has come compared to when she first started out touring in a rental car with her band.

“My drummer and I went to the same high school and when we first started out, it started with a rental car. We didn’t even have the church van with the U-Haul yet. And then we moved up to the church van and U-Haul and then we were like, ‘oh, we have leg room.’ And then we moved up to a bandwagon, which is basically like a rock tumbler going down the road. If you hit a bump, you’re going to go through the ceiling, which that didn’t last too long, fortunately. And then next thing you know, there’s like 14 of us on one bus, which to me now seems very not ideal, but at the time it was like, ‘Oh my God, we have a bus driver!’”

Moroney then offered a reminder that for anyone who might think that her success happened overnight, it didn’t. It actually took a lot of hard work and determination to get her to where she is today.

“To me, it feels like I’ve just slowly been chipping away,” she shared.

The honest conversation continued when Barrymore encouraged Moroney to think back to a time when she felt so low that success seemed out of reach and asked how she was able to push through it. Without any hesitation, the Georgia native recalled a moment in 2020 that had her on the verge of calling it quits.

“I remember it was like 2020. I had lived in Nashville for like six months and I remember watching the CMA Awards alone at my apartment and I remember crying that night and I was just like, ‘This is like never going to happen for me,’” she admitted. “And I was just, I hadn’t written a good song in like two months and I’m like, ‘This sucks. Maybe I should just move home.’ And my parents encouraged me to not do that.”

Fast forward to 2024, Megan Moroney won her first-ever CMA Award for New Artist Of the Year, all because she didn’t give up. She is now making waves with her Billboard 200-topping album, Cloud 9, and is preparing to embark on her first-ever headlining arena tour.

Speaking about her upcoming performances, Barrymore brought up the fact that Moroney’s live shows are a unique experience as she strives to make the concerts feel like group therapy. She explained that the reason she set this intention for each night is because of the palpable energy that fills the rooms she plays in. Fans often join Moroney in crying through the moments of heartbreak, screaming through moments of anger and also celebrating love.

“It’s like in the 90 minutes or however long I’m on stage, we go through all these emotions together. And it doesn’t matter if you don’t know your neighbor, you’re like hugging them, screaming with them. And it’s interesting that you say that because when I started writing songs, I would have people ask me like, ‘Does it ever scare you to be that vulnerable?’ And I’m like, it did at first for sure, because I’m like, ‘Can I say this?’ But then once I started putting out music that was super honest and just straight to the point, it made me realize that like, yeah, we all go through the same stuff, just only a few of us are willing to talk about it,” she admitted.

Megan Moroney’s appearance on one of the country’s most-watched daytime talk shows also included a ramen taste test and a hilarious bonding moment over things she and Barrymore have both admitted to doing in a moment of post-breakup rage.

Earlier this week, she delivered one of her biggest performances yet when she took the stage at the 72,220-capacity NRG Stadium  for her SOLD-OUT debut performance at RodeoHouston. The show sold out in under half an hour, and Moroney celebrated the moment with a memorable entrance, pulling up to the stage in her Cloud 9–pink Bronco before launching into a powerhouse set.

She is next set to embark on her highly anticipated Cloud 9 Tour, which features stops at arenas across North America, Europe, and the UK.