At this point who hasn’t chimed in on the Garth Brooks Bud Light drama?
If you’ve somehow missed it, it all started with comments from Garth during a Q&A as part of Billboard’s Country Music Live in Conversation.
Garth discussed his upcoming Nashville bar, and wanting to make Friends in Low Places (yes, that’s really the name of it) a “safe space” for everyone – and that includes selling Bud Light, which has been facing significant backlash since partnering with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney a few months ago.
“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.
Yes, we’re going to serve every brand of beer. We just are. It’s not our decision to make.
If you come into this house, love one another. If you’re an a**hole, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway…
In my existence, one a**hole can turn the whole tide down there. My thing is, let’s create a place that you feel safe in.”
After the comments (which were first reported here on Whiskey Riff) started making their rounds, many took to social media to express their displeasure at Garth calling those who don’t support Bud Light “a**holes,” with many saying Garth’s bar was now on the list of places not to visit.
Many in the country music community have chimed in on Garth’s comments, including his fellow country star and Nashville bar owner John Rich:
“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.”
And now even the father of one country singer has given his thoughts on the controversy.
Rob Schneider, the actor best known for movies like The Hot Chick, Grown Ups, and pretty much every movie Adam Sandler’s made, also happens to be the father of Elle King.
And during an appearance on Fox News, Schneider was asked his opinion on the Garth Brooks controversy – and why he thinks the backlash will make Garth think twice before speaking out next time:
“I think next time, he’s going to stay out of it. Isn’t he?
I think Garth Brooks, next time, is going to shut his mouth, and he’s going to pretend like ‘I don’t have anything to do with what beer is chosen in my restaurant.’”
Schneider also says that the current political climate has created a culture where people don’t want to speak out:
“I think the culture is in a very weird little place of hypersensitivity one way or the other. And I think that’s why most people shut their mouths. I mean, just from a business standpoint, just shut up, say, ‘I have nothing to do with it.’”
Hard to argue with that.
But now let’s get to the real reason I’m bringing up Schneider’s comments: I was really just looking for an excuse to post this iconic clip from South Park.