I love finding out that professional athletes (and celebrities) are more like us regular people.
One person that I really find relatable is NBA superstar Jimmy Butler. No, I can’t dunk a basketball, or carry a team of professional athletes deep into the NBA playoffs. That’s not what I’m talking about…
The Miami Heat forward is actually a huge country music fan, and has supported the industry publicly on multiple different occasions. His fandom of country started as a joke, but now his love for the genre is as serious as it gets.
How do we know that? Well, anyone that has a country music album on the way probably loves country music. The fact that he’s put time aside in his busy, professional-athlete schedule to record 45 songs and counting is a testament to his interest in the genre.
Apparently, the very first country song that he ever heard was “Don’t Take The Girl” by Tim McGraw, and he was hooked from that moment on. Since then, he’s become a huge fan of more modern day stars like Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs, and has even become pretty good friends with Luke Bryan.
Here’s him famously bumping to Luke Combs on a boat:
Butler’s blossoming friendships with a lot of the biggest country stars in the world has made him realize one thing above all else: country music loves to be hospitable.
The stars that sing the music are usually just as inviting and open as the music itself. That’s what Jimmy Butler recognized most when he was spending time with Luke Bryan, and spoke about the experience last year on the ALO Mind Podcast.
Butler said in the interview:
“I’ve come to find out that country music artists are so selfless. They always make sure that you’re good and you’re okay.
I’ll show up with like nine people to a Luke Bryan show and Luke won’t go on stage until he’s like, ‘Hey! Make sure Jimmy and his people have a beer!’ It’s like, ‘Luke, I don’t want a beer.’
So I have to drink the beer and then he’ll finally go on stage so I really love that perspective about so many of those individuals in that country music world.”
The conversation really gets into his country music fandom around the 20-minute mark of the video below:
And fun fact, Jimmy Butler actually appeared in Luke Bryan’s 2017 basketball-themed music video for “Light It Up.”
