(NEXSTAR) – Country singer Jason Aldean has been dropped by his longtime PR firm days after his wife, Brittany Aldean, made critical comments about gender-affirming care for trans children.
“Music has always been and remains The GreenRoom’s core focus, so we had to make the difficult decision after 17 years to step away from representing Jason,” said Tyne Parrish, the co-owner of The Green Room, in a statement first shared with Billboard. Parrish also confirmed the news to Variety.
“We aren’t the best people for the gig anymore, but will always be big fans of his music — he is one of the greatest live entertainers in country music,” Parrish told Billboard.
The Green Room, based in Nashville, declined to specify why Aldean was dropped. A representative for the firm did not respond on Friday to request for more information.
News of the Green Room’s decision followed backlash against Aldean’s wife, Brittany Aldean, who wrote last week in an Instagram post that she would “really like to thank my parents for not changing my gender when I went through my tomboy phase.”
Singer and songwriter Cassadee Pope responded to Brittany Aldean’s post on Twitter, saying that Brittany Aldean’s alleged “tomboy phase” in no way compares “to someone wanting to transition.”
“The Bones” singer Maren Morris later commented on Pope’s post, writing, “It’s so easy to, like, not be a scumbag human? Sell your clip-ins and zip it, Insurrection Barbie.”
Morris appeared to be referencing one of Brittany Aldean’s Instagram posts from shortly after the Capitol riots in Jan. 2021, in which she suggested that some of the rioters were actually “Antifa disguised as Trump supporters,” Rolling Stone reported at the time. Such claims have been repeatedly debunked since the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021.
Following Pope’s tweet, Brittany Aldean responded to Pope directly in an Instagram Story.
“Advocating for the genital mutilation of children under the disguise of love and calling it ‘gender affirming care’ is one of the worst evils,” she wrote, in part, as seen in a screengrab shared by People.
Brittany Aldean would later say on Instagram that her recent comments were “taken out of context,” though she did not specify which remarks she felt were misinterpreted.
Jason Aldean, who released his first studio album in 2005, has been a client of The GreenRoom since 2006 — which is the same year the firm was founded, according to The Tennessean. Other notable clients include Dierks Bentley, Lady A, and Thomas Rhett, per The GreenRoom’s official site.