Garth Brooks says transphobic “as**oles” aren’t welcome at his new bar

Country music legend Garth Brooks has announced that he’ll serve Bud Light in his soon-to-open Nashville, Tennessee bar, Friends in Low Places Bar & Honkey Tonk — even though right-wingers have boycotted the beer brand for collaborating with transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney.

Brooks made his comments during a panel conversation at Billboard Country Live, a two-day celebration of the musical genre hosted by the music industry publication.

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“I want [my bar] 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,” Brooks said. “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 as**ole, there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway.”

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After Brooks’ comment, various right-wingers on social media threatened to boycott, delete, or throw out his music, Newsweek reported.

Right-wingers began boycotting Bud Light after transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney posted a 50-second Instagram video on April 1 revealing some custom Bud Light cans with her face on them.

Over the next month, conservatives lost their minds, posting videos as they dumped out Bud Light cans and shot up cases of Bud Light with semiautomatic rifles. Elected Republicans baselessly claimed that Mulvaney was a pedophile and that the global balance of power would be upset by Mulvaney’s Instagram video. Others said that they were boycotting Bud Light, often switching to other LGBTQ+-friendly brands.

By the end of April, Bud Light’s parent company – Anheuser-Busch – had put out a statement saying that it “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people… We are in the business of bringing people together over a beer.”

Upset that Anheuser-Busch didn’t stand up for Mulvaney, transgender people, or LGBTQ+ people more generally, several LGBTQ+ bars stopped serving Bud Light, Colorado’s gay Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced his lifelong boycott on the brand, and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) kicked Anheuser-Busch off the top of its corporate equality index (CEI), a measure of various companies’ LGBTQ+-inclusive workplace practices. Other online commenters noted that the company donates big bucks to anti-LGBTQ+ politicians. 

Brooks has long voiced support for the LGBTQ+ community. In 1992, he released “We Shall Be Free,” a song denouncing homophobia, racism, pollution, financial inequality, and religious intolerance. Its lyrics state: “When we’re free to love anyone we choose / When this world’s big enough for all different views / When we all can worship from our own kind of pew / Then we shall be free, yeah.”

In the liner notes to The Chase, the album containing the aforementioned song, Brooks wrote, “‘We Shall Be Free’ is definitely and easily the most controversial song I have ever done. A song of love, a song of tolerance from someone who claims not to be a prophet but just an ordinary man.”

“I never thought there would be any problems with this song,” his note continued. “Sometimes the roads we take do not turn out to be the roads we envisioned them to be. All I can say about ‘We Shall Be Free” is that I will stand by every line of this song as long as I live. I am very proud of it.”

Brooks credits his deceased lesbian half-sister Betsy Smittle with developing his views on gay rights and same-sex marriage. In 2000, he performed at the Equality Rights benefit concert for Gay Rights at RFK Stadium in Washington D.C.. There, he performed a duet with gay pop star George Michael to Michael’s song, “Freedom ’90.”

Though Brooks announced his retirement in 2001, he has continued to perform, tour, and release albums ever since.