Bud Light

Last week, Garth Brooks took the stage at Billboard Country Live, where he had a wide-ranging discussion with Billboard’s executive editor, West Coast and Nashville, Melinda Newman.

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“I know this sounds corny,” the country superstar said of his upcoming Friends In Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk in Nashville. “I want it to be the Chick-fil-A of honky-tonks … I want it to be a place you feel safe in, I want it to be a place where you feel like there are manners and people like one another. And yes, we’re going to serve every brand of beer. We just are. It’s not our decision to make. Our thing is this, if you [are let] into this house, love one another. If you’re an a–hole, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway.” 

Brooks’ comments come following Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Travis Tritt all calling for a boycott of Bud Light and Anheuser-Busch products following their partnership with transgender activist Dylan Mulvaney.

After Billboard Country Live, a number of public figures had thoughts on Brooks’ opinion, including Republican Congressman Matt Gaetz. “I’m sure glad we have Garth Brooks to tell us who is and isn’t an a–hole,” he tweeted on Saturday (June 10). “Question, tho: Does it make someone an asshole if they cheat on their spouse, write a song about it with their paramour, and then publish the duet with THAT VERY paramour? Or does that make for a good person, righteous in their moral preening?”

He posted an accompanying photo of Brooks’ wife Trisha Yearwood’s 1997 track, “In Another’s Eyes,” implying that the country star cheated on his ex-wife Sandy Mahl — whom he divorced from in 2001 — with Yearwood. Billboard has reached out to Brooks’ reps for more information.

I’m sure glad we have Garth Brooks to tell us who is and isn’t an asshole. Question, tho: Does it make someone an asshole if they cheat on their spouse, write a song about it with their paramour, and then publish the duet with THAT VERY paramour? Or does that make for a good… https://t.co/Qjs5JGS5Oa pic.twitter.com/ELMoUCBCiL— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) June 10, 2023

While not as aggressive as Gaetz, country singer John Rich also weighed in about the topic to Fox News Digital. “Garth Brooks has always been the guy that that said, ‘everybody come to my show,’” he said. “It’s something that we love about Garth. You know, he makes his music for everybody. And that really is what music is about. You’re making your music for everybody. Beer’s for everybody, too.”

Rich continued, “If Garth is serving Bud Light in his bar, that’s fine. Garth can do that. Garth might find out not many people are going to order it and at the end of the day, you have to put things in your establishment that people are going to purchase if you’re going to run a successful business. So, he might find that out.”

He concluded that Brooks “probably sees the pain and division that’s going on in the country and wants to try to help that.”