It’s no secret that there’s no love lost between Maren Morris and Morgan Wallen.
Maren has never been afraid to voice her opinions. Following his 2021 racial slur incident, Maren was quick to jump in and criticize Morgan, and has continued to speak publicly about similar issues and politics over the years.
Here’s what she tweeted at the time about the incident:
It actually IS representative of our town because this isn’t his first “scuffle” and he just demolished a huge streaming record last month regardless. We all know it wasn’t his first time using that word. We keep them rich and protected at all costs with no recourse.
— MAREN MORRIS (@MarenMorris) February 3, 2021
And on a recent episode of actress Sophia Bush’s Work in Progress podcast, Maren talked pretty in-depth about the backlash she received from Morgan’s fans after she spoke out against the singer.
Maren told the host that not only did she receive death threats from people online, her son Hayes (who is now four years old), was also the target of threats. Obviously, that’s just beyond the pale, and way too far no matter what the disagreement is:
“I mean, the death threat portion for me as a young mother was, yeah, obviously, like, scary. And it wasn’t death threats against me. It was against my son, too. So it’s like, ‘Oh, wow. Now we’re involving the kids, the ones that you cared so much about.'”
She said that she was trying to encourage not only Wallen, but the country industry in general, to “do better,” though many took it as a personal attack on him and obviously a random stranger online threatening her life, but more so her son’s life, was very scary.
Maren said she had a similar reaction from country fans when she spoke out about the transgender issue, and even got into it publicly with Jason Aldean’s wife, Brittany, which caused a big stir online:
“I think it’s because they’re not only, like, defending the person that said this, but they are taking it personally as if I’m criticizing them, which I think says, you know, a lot more about their interpretation of criticism and what that content was than me as a person calling out someone using the N-word.
Or even transphobia that I’ve criticized in the past that sort of, like, exploded in another wave.”
Maren recently performed at the Democratic National Convention, singing “Better Than We Found It,” a protest song she released in the wake of the death of George Floyd in 2020:
