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Paramore’s Hayley Williams Says She “Hates Morgan Wallen” During Boston Show
Is Morgan Wallen Derangement Syndrome a thing?
Last year, Hayley Williams, lead singer of Paramore, released an untitled album, which fans have named Ego, that includes a song where she very much comes for Morgan. It has a very unique name titled “Ego Death At A Bachelorette Party (EDAABP),” and while she doesn’t say his name outright, it’s pretty obvious when you read the line about her being the the “biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar.”
It’s the very first line in the song:
“I’ll be the biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar
No use shootin’ for the moon, no use chasing waterfalls
I’m the biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar
No use shootin’ for the moon, no use chasing waterfalls”
So I guess you won’t likely ever catch her at Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen, which opened in 2024, but I’ll be honest, I used to absolutely jam to Paramore’s “Still Into You” back in the day and I loved their music. When I was in middle and high school, they were huge, and I was kind of a little emo girl so I loved them. And the band’s lead singer Hayley Williams is actually a Nashville native, believe it or not, though they certainly aren’t part of the country music industry. Paramore is one of the quintessential pop punk bands of the early 2000s. Their Spotify bio even says that “no one understood how a band so un-country could be from this strange little town called Nashville,” and I’d say that’s probably a perfect way to put it.
And Morgan is obviously a polarizing figure, not only in country music but in the industry as a whole. From his past controversies that include multiple arrests for public intoxication and his more recent chair-throwing incident outside of Eric Church’s bar, Chief’s, to his highly-publicized and scrutinized use of a racial slur back in 2021, the “Last Night” singer has been no stranger to negative press over the past five years.
Since the chair-throwing, he’s been pretty quiet and managed to stay out of trouble, and hopefully he’s really been able to learn from all of that, mature, and figure out how to handle the insane success and fame he’s found with his music career. But despite him be relatively out of the limelight for the past couple years, that hasn’t stopped a weird group of people obsessed with making “I hate Morgan Wallen” their entire personality… like Hayley.
And during a show at the House of Blues in Boston, Massachusetts on April 4th, Williams was on a tangent about “marginalized people” and “allies,” which led to her bring up Morgan. The video starts in the middle of her speech, so I don’t know more details around exactly what came before this, but she said that her hometown in Nashville deals with problems in terms of what she views as not protecting certain kinds of people, but she quickly transitioned to talking about Morgan.
She previously confirmed it was about Morgan, not anyone else like, and she made that very clear when she told the audience that she “hate[s] Morgan Wallen,” saying she knew it would end up on the internet but she didn’t care:
“It was something about being ‘concept neutral,’ and I just thought, ‘What a f***** bad time to be neutral on anything in this world. So shame on them and … marginalized people need allies and protection and support, so…
Back home, we have the same s***, you know. and I hate it, because I grew up there, and it was so special and then I got older and I could see, I had different eyes to see it all. And they ruined Broadway… no shade if you want to travel down there and go honk tonkin’. I like that too.
But um, I hate Morgan Wallen. Oh no. That’ll be on the internet. F***. Let’s play it.”
The crowd loved it, they screamed and clapped when she said that, and I think she obviously knew that would be the reaction which is why she said it. They also collectively gasped in horror when she mentioned “concept neutral” so that tells you what kind of crowd you’re dealing with here…
I honestly hate politics, I think both sides are pretty much awful in so many ways, but to call for love and support for people and then turnaround and say you “hate” someone you’ve probably never even met? That feels hypocritical at best, and it’s pretty funny, yet actually pretty sad, how she seemingly can’t get Morgan out of her head, going so far as to include him in a song. I’d be willing to bet he hasn’t even thought about her once since this song came out… he probably hasn’t even heard it.
It’s not even a good song, and I think she’d be better off to move on from continually coming for Morgan when he’s the hottest and biggest thing in music and her career certainly isn’t what it used to be. But hey, Morgan living rent free in your head gets attention, and the virtue signaling gets praise from the media so… good for you, I guess?
Listen at your own risk:
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