Maren Morris Clarifies Why She's 'Leaving Country Music'

Maren Morris is done with the “toxic arms” of country music.

The Grammy-winning singer made headlines last month when she announced she was quitting the country music game. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times, Morris, 33, said that she wanted to “take a step back” from the genre due to increased misogyny, racism, homophobia, and transphobia in the industry. Now, she’s clarified those comments.

On Wednesday’s episode of The New York Times’ Podcast, Morris said that she couldn’t “participate in the really toxic arms” of country music, and is “OK just doing my own thing.”

“I love living in Nashville, I have my family,” Morris said. “There's a reason why people come there from L.A. and New York to write with us. It’s because we have amazing songwriters there. That’s not gonna change.”

“I couldn’t do this circus anymore,” she continued. “Feeling like I have to absorb and explain people’s bad behaviors and laugh it off. I just couldn’t do that after 2020 particularly. I’ve changed. A lot of things changed about me that year.”

“It’s so ingrained and Pavlovian that you are not allowed to criticize this family ever,” she said about responses to her criticizing the more toxic parts of country music. “‘Not only are you criticizing our way of life,’ which I’m not, ‘you’re criticizing every fundamental belief we have, you’re criticizing Jesus, you’re criticizing blue-collar workers, you're criticizing farmers.’ Like, they will go to these lengths to justify the abuse and discrepancies that exist within the machine of what this is.”

“In country, what standard are we setting? What is a little girl or like a little gay kid in the South at home when they look at this format right now, what are we teaching them? That they’re not welcome,” she added.

While Morris admitted it’s “a little bit hyperbolic” to say she’s completely leaving country music, she stated that she will no longer submit her music for country awards consideration and is moving from the Sony Nashville record label to New York-based Columbia Records.