This Week in Gossip (June 7)
Morgan Wallen’s a diva, Backrooms beats Star Wars, and Variety is odd about the Heated Rivalry boys.
Morgan Wallen’s a diva, Backrooms beats Star Wars, and Variety is odd about the Heated Rivalry boys.
Morgan Wallen’s a Loser
I regret to inform you that Morgan Wallen is at it again. The biggest star in modern country, and one of Billboard’s top musicians of the decade (yikes), can’t stop revealing himself to be a total twunt. At a recent concert, his piano malfunctioned, so he did the calm and professional thing in response: he flipped it over on stage. Very suave, Morgan. I guess you couldn’t racially abuse it, so you went for the next option. Hayley Williams is right about you.
If any woman had done this, it would have generated enough clickbait headlines to combat the AI internet takeover. Hell, if Chappell Roan had just looked at her piano cockeyed, someone would call for her execution. We know why Wallen is treated as some exceptional figure for whom the rules do not apply but you’d think he’d be somewhat more careful about stumbling d*ck-first into this kind of petulance.
Nashville is as rigged as pro-wrestling. It’s a hugely gatekept music scene where all the old white guys in radio and at the record companies dictate who gets do be heard and why. Women have usually paid the price for this, more so if they’re not white. Look at how Beyonce was treated but also so many who were dyed-in-the-wool country from their first albums, like Maren Morris and Kacey Musgraves. The system is so rigged that even talented white dudes are sidelined if they don’t fit into the stifling Republican coded beer-and-trucks mould of country, like my guy Sturgill Simpson. It’s taken until last year for a female country artist to break out into the pop charts, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Ella Langley, who is talented, is also pretty MAGA-adjacent.
Morgan Wallen’s just another boring little racist dude who constantly sings about being wronged by women despite being a massive jerk and drunk, and that’s what Nashville wants the prevailing image of country in 2026 to be. He Drakes his way to wall-to-wall Billboard coverage through his stupidly long albums too. That he faced so little pushback or industry repercussions for literally saying the N word tells you all you need to know. Maybe they’ll open up a bar themed after this piano incident, just to drive home how much they endorse everything he does. Go listen to Kacey and Sturgill’s new albums instead.
RIP Star Wars; Hello, Backrooms and Obsession
Last week, we got a new Star Wars movie. Once upon a time, this was considered a big deal, and The Mandalorian and Grogu is the first theatrically released SW project since The Rise of Skywalker. It’s got Pedro Pascal and Baby Yoda. Surely, it’ll be a mega-hit? Well, in its second week of release, it was beaten by two movies made by creatives who got their start on YouTube.
