Garth Brooks is arguably the most successful country artist of all time.
With over 150 million units sold, he clocks in at number one all time in terms of country music artists, ahead of legends like Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Reba McEntire and more.
Garth is also leading all genres of music with a whopping NINE Diamond-Certified albums, beating out The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Eagles and more.
And even now, he’s packing out stadiums across the country, regularly playing for crowds of more than 50,000 people, and breaking records week in and week out.
Any way you slice it, Garth Brooks is a music legend…. BUT… we can’t just ignore the incredibly hilarious, colossally embarrassing, alter-ego era of the great Chris Gaines.
If you’ve never really dove into the Chris Gaines story, it’s WILD.
We’re talking sex, trauma, death, car crashes, plane crashes, house fires, scandals… the VH1 Chris Gaines special might be the greatest documentary in the history of the world.
In fact, it might even be the greatest piece of filmmaking in the history of the world.
It chronicles the weird, full throttle, and completely insane (fake) life of Chris Gaines. It even featured appearances from folks like Billy Joel and “girlfriend” Maria Costa (Yes, Chris dated actress Maria Costa).
And while Garth’s team has done a great job of wiping it from the internet, you can find pieces of it out there.
And Garth is still getting roasted for it and deservedly so.
A few years back, Chris Stapleton sat down with Joe Rogan for an episode of his podcast, The Joe Rogan Experience, and the two got to talking about what an absolutely insane idea that was.
The conversation started with Joe and Chris talking about artists that get comfortable in their career, never take chances, and wind up hating their own career, even if they’re making a lot of money.
But sometimes, they take too big of a risk… enter Chris Gaines.
Joe didn’t hold back on Garth’s Chris Gaines shenanigans:
“Like when Garth Brooks put on that wig and pretended to be that other dude. Remember that part? Remember that thing? I love when someone goes like woah woah way off the reservation.
I’m not a Garth Brooks hater, I think it’s just a colossal fuck-up that I think is hilarious.
And if Garth was here I’d pull that up and I would tell him I loved him and I would say, ‘Come on dude what the fuck were you smoking back then? Like, who talked you into this?’”
Chris then replied that the Chris Gaines “mistake” might’ve been a result of being so famous and successful that there is no where else to go:
“I think at the time that he did that, he had to be into ‘what in the world else can I do? The only way I can become more successful is come someone else and make them successful.’
But he was so successful and still is in that space that he can’t be any bigger than he is.”
And while there was supposed to be some kind of movie that never really got made (aside from the incredible VH1 special), I think Chris is probably right.
When you’re that big… what else is there to do?
Honestly, I don’t care why he did it, I’m just glad that he did… and we can all laugh about it now.