Joining the greats like Hank Williams and Johnny Cash, eh?
Elle King found herself in some hot water back at the beginning of 2024 after her performance at a Dolly Parton tribute at the Grand Ole Opry. The country singer (and daughter of actor Rob Schneider) was visibly intoxicated during the show, slurring her way through Dolly’s song “Marry Me” and announcing that she was “drunk as shit.”
@kennybowman78
Obviously quite a few people were upset at King for disrespecting Dolly Parton and the Grand Ole Opry, and the singer promptly canceled all of her upcoming shows at the time, revealing that she entered a “therapeutic program” to work on some things in her personal life:
“After everything that happened in January, I went to a different type of therapeutic program because I was very sad, and nobody really knows what I was going through behind closed doors.”
And Dolly herself was able to forgive and forget, addressing the incident during an interview with Extra and telling everyone to move on:
“Elle is really a great artist, she’s a great girl. And she’s been going through a lot of hard things lately, and she just had a little too much to drink.
So let’s just forgive that and forget it and move on, ‘cuz she felt worse than anybody ever could.”
But King is herself addressing the incident in a new song – and claiming she’s “banned from the Grand Ole Opry.”
“Cup or two, three, floor
How many martinis more until the curtain call
Brother could you help me please,
Probably shoulda stuck to weed,
Or maybe nothin’ at all.
Things got outta hand
Now I’m banned from the Grand Ole Opry”
Of course the Opry hasn’t addressed the incident publicly, other than in a reply to a tweet apologizing for the language that King used during her performance.
Hi Judas, we deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance.
— Grand Ole Opry (@opry) January 20, 2024
And the Opry hasn’t officially said anything about King being banned from its historic stage, so this could just be a song she wrote about her mistake and not to be taken literally. In fact, in one of the comments on the song King praises the Opry and calls them “super lovely and gracious.”
“The Opry is super lovely and gracious. This is all out of love and art.”
So is Elle King actually banned from the Grand Ole Opry? Who knows. But if she is, she’s far from the first artist who was kicked out of the circle.
Obviously Hank Williams is the most well-known of the artists who were at one point or another kicked out of the cast of the Opry. The ban was supposed to be temporary, but unfortunately the country music legend passed away before he could be reinstated – and because Opry membership is reserved for only living artists, it’s unlikely that Hank will ever be made a “member” of the Grand Ole Opry.
And back in 1965, Johnny Cash was told not to come back after he smashed out the stage lights at the Ryman Auditorium with his microphone stand during a drunken performance on the Grand Ole Opry, though he was welcomed back just a few years later.
So even if Elle King is “banned from the Grand Ole Opry” right now, something tells me it’s only temporary and she’ll be stepping back into the circle at some point.
And hey, now she has a new song to play when she returns.
