Garth Brooks has made a point of confirming that his new bar will “serve every brand of beer,” following a transphobic backlash to Bud Light’s recent partnership with Dylan Mulvaney.
While speaking with Billboard last week about his forthcoming bar and entertainment space, Friends in Low Places Bar & Honky Tonk, the veteran country musician made it clear that hatred would not be tolerated there. The venue is scheduled to open soon in Nashville’s South Broadway District.
“I know this sounds corny,” he said, “I want it to be the Chick-fil-A of honky-tonks. … 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 a—, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway.”
Brooks’ Billboard interview arrived a couple of months after Mulvaney, a transgender influencer and activist, announced their collaboration with Bud Light. The brewing giant had previously gifted Mulvaney cans of beer with her face on them to celebrate the one-year anniversary of her TikTok series, “Days of Girlhood,” which has chronicled her gender-transition journey.
Mulvaney’s announcement sparked a wave of conservative outrage and prompted some — including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — to call for a boycott of Bud Light over the brand deal. One of the beer company’s most prominent detractors, Kid Rock, posted a video of himself shooting up a stack of Bud Light cans in response to the collaboration.
Billboard also reported that Kid Rock’s and John Rich’s bars, located in the same area of Nashville as Brooks’, stopped selling Bud Light in the wake of the company’s partnership with Mulvaney.
Others have shown support for Mulvaney and shamed their haters for spreading transphobia.
Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, initially released a statement saying that it “works with hundreds of influencers … as one of many ways to authentically connect with audiences across various demographics.” The corporation’s chief executive, Brendan Whitworth, later issued a separate statement saying, “We never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people. We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”
Meanwhile, Mulvaney responded by thanking those who “choose to see” her as a human being, even if they “don’t fully understand or relate” to her experience.
“What I’m struggling to understand is the need to dehumanize and to be cruel,” the comedian and musical theater actor said at the time. “I don’t think that’s right. … Dehumanization has never fixed anything in history ever.”
