Jimmy Butler is a BIG country music guy.
The superstar for the Miami Heat has said in the past that he used to listen to country music to annoy his teammates…but then he actually got into it. And now, Jimmy Buckets is an outspoken country music fan.
Earlier this year, Butler had Morgan Wallen and Luke Combs blasting through the arena as the Heat were practicing. And recently, Butler even said that he’s going to record a country album himself:
“I don’t want to tell anyone who I’ve been writing with because then it’ll ruin the surprise. Now, I’m in the lab writing and producing country music. We got some real artists and songwriters.
We probably got around 45 tracks right now, and I hope to go write some more. There’s definitely going to be an album.”
One artist that Butler has gotten particularly close with has been Morgan Wallen, who of course in 2021 was caught on video using a racial slur and temporarily suspended from his label.
But according to Butler, that’s a non-issue for him.
When asked by Rolling Stone about the controversy during a recent interview, Butler had a straightforward answer:
“Wasn’t no controversy for me.”
Butler said that he hasn’t even seen the video, but that he knows Morgan well enough to know that it’s not an issue, even if the singer made a mistake:
“I don’t even know what happened. I heard about it. I didn’t see the video.
I didn’t look much into it and I’m not going to look much into it. I don’t think he’s a bad human being in any way, shape or form. He is a friend of mine, and I don’t know what happened.
Obviously, it was a mistake, I think he learned from it, I think he knows better, and I don’t know what was said and in what context, but I think he’s an incredible human being who made a mistake.”
In fact, Butler says he was even hoping that Morgan would let him sing with him a little bit at one shows:
“My birthday is September 14 and he plays a concert on my birthday in Toronto.
I’ve already talked to him and said that I want to come onstage and just sing one line of a song. I mean, I could sing many of his songs, but I just want to sing one line of “’98 Braves.”
Maybe I’ll sing a whole verse!”
Well it doesn’t look like Butler was able to join Morgan onstage for “’98 Braves,” but he did catch up with his friend after the show: