NEED TO KNOW
- Hayley Williams is on the latest edition of the New York Times’ Popcast
- The Paramore frontwoman revealed who the title track of her latest solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, is all about
- The person is a famous country singer
Hayley Williams is setting the record straight on that song.
While appearing on the latest edition of the New York Times’ Popcast, the Paramore frontwoman, 36, dished on what, or better yet, who, the title track of her latest solo album, Ego Death at a Bachelorette Party, is all about.
The song has a lyric that reads, “I’ll be the biggest star at this racist country singer’s bar.”
When asked if she wanted to name names, she admitted that “it could be a couple,” but was not afraid to reveal the exact name she had in mind.
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“I’m always talking about Morgan Wallen. I don’t give a s—,” said Williams. “Find me at Whole Foods bitch. I don’t care. I just don’t care.”
While Wallen, 32, hasn’t responded to Williams, the singer said further on in the podcast that she is “never not ready to scream at the top of my lungs about racial issues.”
“I don’t know why that became the thing that gets me most angry. I think because it’s so intersectional that it overlaps with everything from climate change to LGBTQIA issues,” she said.
Back in 2021, a video of Wallen using the N-word surfaced, an incident for which he received widespread criticism.
Multiple country music stars spoke out against his use of the word at the time, including Mickey Guyton, Kelsea Ballerini and Maren Morris.
“I’m embarrassed and sorry,” Wallen later said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. “I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.”
In an effort to educate himself and “learn and try to be better,” Wallen met with Black leaders in the music community like 300 Elektra Entertainment chairman/CEO Kevin Liles, Universal Music Group executive vp/chief people and inclusion officer Eric Hutcherson and Grammy-winning gospel artist Bebe Winans, as well as with the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC).
Wallen told Billboard in 2023 that at the time he hadn’t realized “just how much that people listen to me.”
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“I don’t think I realized that, at least not at that grand of a scale at the time,” he told the outlet. “I [learned] how much my words matter.”
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