Kelsea Ballerini took the stage at the CMT Music Awards and made two career-ending errors. First, she talked about gun control with a tribute to school shooting victims, something that she has no right to discuss as a musician, and then she danced with drag queens.
There were children in the audience.
It took less than a day for more than 400 radio stations, nearly half of the 1200 country stations nationwide, to blacklist her entire catalog.
Catfish Bill Montminy of WCNT in Great Trees, New Hampshire said his station dropped her while she was still performing and started a domino effect by calling other stations and letting them know.
“She’s against freedom,” said Catfish Bill, “she wants people to get their guns taken away by drag queens and that’s not okay.”
As soon as the news hit the Mason-Dixon line, the bans spread like wildfire. “Kick Kelsea to the Kurb” was trending on Twitter until someone claimed it held a secret message from white supremacists.
Ted Nugent spoke out and said he’d be happy to convert a few of his songs to country and do next year’s show, if they’d be willing to induct him into the Hall of Fame. “literally any hall of fame will do at this point,” he said, “I’m really good at Nerf Disc Golf.”
Ms. Ballerini was unavailable for comment. God Bless America.