Garth Brooks is bringing all his friends in low places to his new honky-tonk, where all your typical beers will be served and where no transphobes will be welcomed. The country legend said that Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk, the joint he’s opening soon in Nashville’s notorious South Broadway District, will be serving Bud Light despite many conservatives’ ongoing boycott of the brand.
To catch you up: Back in April, Bud Light teamed up with social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney for a rather innocuous sponsored Instagram post in which she cracked open a cold one dressed as Holly Golightly. The Breakfast at Tiffany’s protagonist probably wouldn’t be too into light beer, but whatever, it’s cute! And yet, xenophobic right-wingers took issue with the brand deal and relinquished their Bud, all because Mulvaney — gasp — is a transgender woman.
Brooks alluded to the senseless mass pearl-clutching while speaking about his new bar during a panel at Billboard Country Live this week: “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. And yes, we’re going to serve every brand of beer. We just are. It’s not our decision to make. Our thing is this, if you [are let] into this house, love one another. If you’re an asshole, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway.”
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Ever the gentleman, Brooks didn’t name names, but Billboard points out that a handful of artist-owned watering holes on lower Broadway have stopped serving Bud Light since the brand sponsored Mulvaney, including John Rich’s Redneck Riviera and Kid Rock’s bar.
Back in 2021, Brooks performed at President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’ inauguration ceremony. Since Jimmy Carter, the singer has serenaded at every president’s inauguration ceremony — except for Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump.