Maren Morris is leaving country music.
The 33-year-old singer is switching labels from Columbia Nashville to Columbia Records because she has become “very, very distant” from the industry and its politics, insisting it was time to “step outside” the drama within the country “community”.
She told the Los Angeles Times about country music: “I thought I’d like to burn it down and start over. But it’s burning itself down without my help.
The ‘Get the Hell Out Of Here’ singer has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and the Black Lives Matter movement, and she admitted pushing for change has only made her feel isolated.
She said: “I’ve always been a questioner and a status quo challenger, just by virtue of being a woman. So it wasn’t really a choice.
“The further you get into the country music business, you start to see the cracks. And once you see them, you can’t unsee them…
“If you really love this kind of music and you start to see problems, it needs to be criticized. Anything that is so popular should be scrutinized if we want to see progress.
“But I’ve kind of said all I can say. I always thought I’d have to jump out of a plane with my middle finger in the air, but I’m trying to mature here and realize that I can just walk away from the parts of it that don’t make me happy anymore.
