Bud Light’s having a tough time lately.
The iconic beer brand has been embroiled in controversy since partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney on its latest ad campaign, setting off a firestorm of backlash and even boycotts from some country music artists.
John Rich announced that he was pulling Bud Light from his downtown Nashville bar, Redneck Riviera, and Travis Tritt said that he would be removing all Anheuser-Busch products from his tour hospitality rider.
And on Friday night while opening for a sold-out stop with Luke Combs at Nashville’s Nissan Stadium, Riley Green even dropped the beer brand from his biggest hit, “I Wish Grandpas Never Died.”
During the chorus, Riley changed up the line “I wish coolers never run out of cold Bud Light,” replacing Bud Light with Coors Light and prompting massive cheers from the crowd.
And later on in the song, he decided to go with “Busch Light,” a brand he’s already partnered with, instead of Bud Light:
Of course Riley’s changed the brand of beer in the song before, so we don’t know if he was trying to make a statement on the current controversy.
But judging from the reaction of the crowd, it seems Bud Light has still got some work to do to win fans back over.
Travis Tritt Reaches Out To Zach Bryan, Wants To Meet In Person Over Bud Light Controversy
In the country music world, two of the most outspoken stars against Bud Light have been Travis Tritt and John Rich. While Rich announced that he would be removing Bud Light from his downtown Nashville bar, Redneck Riviera, Tritt also said that he would be removing all Anheuser-Busch products from his tour rider.
Tritt said he’s not alone in the country music world when it comes to removing his support of Bud Light, but that other artists are afraid to speak up about it – noting that he has no such fear:
Tritt’s tweets drew strong reactions from both sides of the debate (like everything online does these days). And one of country music’s newest superstars even jumped into the discussion.
Zach Bryan directly addressed Tritt in a tweet, saying that while he “doesn’t mind” Travis Tritt, he thinks that “insulting transgender people is completely wrong because we live in a country where we can all just be who we want to be.” And he ended his tweet with one of Tritt’s most famous lyrics, saying that it’s “a great day to be alive I thought.”
He also called out Tritt again in a follow-up tweet, addressing a tweet from Travis that called for Jack Daniels drinkers to take notice of the whiskey company’s partnership with Ru Paul’s Drag Race for a “Small Town, Big Pride” campaign.
Zach has been silent on Twitter since the day those tweets were posted a week ago, but it seems that Travis Tritt has no interest in hashing out their differences online – and wants to meet with Zach in person.
In a tweet to Zach this morning, Travis said that he had been trying to reach out through Zach’s manager. But since they would both be playing at the Two Step Inn festival tomorrow just outside of Austin, Travis would like to meet Zach for an in-person chat while they’re both in the same place.
“Zach, Been trying to reach out to you through your manager. Since we are both playing the Two Step Inn Festival in Georgetown, TX this Saturday, I was hoping we could chat in person. I will be there all day on Saturday. Please let me know if we can chat. Thanks.”
I guess we’ll see if Zach has any interest in taking Travis up on the offer.
