Brad Paisley To Perform At 2025 NFL Draft, & Football Fans Are Less Than Thrilled: “His Best Friend Zelenskyy Appearing Too?”

Quinn Eaton·
COUNTRY MUSIC
·
Brad Paisley
NFL

NFL fans apparently don’t forget.

Brad Paisley has been a longtime country music star, an award winner, he’s as talented with the guitar as they come, and his catalog of hits is DEEP. I mean, remember those summer days back in the early 2000s with a little “Mud On The Tires” coming through the speakers? Can’t beat it. Overall, he’s been one of the more likeable people in the country music community over the past 20 years… that is, until he became a rather strange poster boy for Ukraine and COVID vaccinations.

In 2021, he called getting vaccinated “the most patriotic thing” you can do, and then weirdly blamed Hollywood elites for any apprehension. He hosted vaccination drives in Nashville with First Lady (at the time) Jill Biden. And then back in 2023, Brad Paisley traveled to Kyiv, Ukraine with a group of U.S. senators, and while he was there, he put on an acoustic performance in front of destroyed pieces of the opposing Russian fleet. Of course, Russia and Ukraine have obviously been involved in combat since February of 2022, when Russia invaded the Ukrainian border.

The country music artist accompanied a bi-partisan group of politicians consisting of Democratic senator Mark Kelly of Arizona, Democrat Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Republican Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Paisley stepped into Kyiv’s Mikhailovsky Square and played two songs as stood at the capital of Ukraine. The first tune was an acoustic version of his Ukraine-focused single “Same Here,” and his second song choice was a Ukrainian song which he sang in the native language.

Paisley posted a video of his solo performance on Instagram with the caption:

“Same Here, from St. Michael’s Square in Kyiv, Ukraine. Emotional experience seeing all this first hand. So much more to share.”

Needless to say, he lost some fans…

Paisley was immediately met with some criticism when he first released the Ukrainian-centered song “Same Here,” so much so that he turned off the comments on his Instagram. He released the tribute on the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion, and the song featured audio from the Ukrainian President thanks to recorded Zoom audio.

Some thought he was overstepping his reach with the song, pandering to a political audience to stimulate some buzz for his country music career, while others believed it was a touching tribute to the brave people of war-time Ukraine. When Paisley took that trip to Kyiv in 2o23, the “Remind Me” singer made it clear that be believes both in his stance on Ukraine and in himself.

All of that being said, the country music star’s outspokenness about the foreign affair has stuck with him. That was made evident when the NFL recently announced that Brad Paisley would be featured in the 2025 NFL Draft Concert Series, and NFL fans started going after him in the reply section:

I mean… a free Brad Paisley concert at the NFL draft? I suppose I wouldn’t be complaining. There’s plenty of worse things you could be doing. But then again, I don’t speak for football fans or the rest of the internet…

Many were upset that the NFL chose to go with Paisley, and most of their disdain had to do with the country singer’s support of Ukraine:

Yikes… I’d bet that Brad Paisley just sticks to the hits when he plays in the 2025 NFL Draft Concert Series.

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