Ahead of the release of her highly-anticipated new album, Lainey Wilson told Regalrumination.com that her wardrobe malfunction at the Faster Horses Festival was “just another day in showbiz.”
The 32-year-old country music star was performing at the music festival in Brooklyn, Michigan, on July 20 when . After being notified by her team, the musician took it all in her stride, hustling offstage to swap her purple pants for dark jeans.
“Y’all just about got a real show,” Wilson said to the audience while laughing, per a a fan recorded. “There’s a first time for everything and I’m glad it was y’all that I split my pants wide open in front of,” she said. While sitting down on a big truck onstage, Wilson continued: “You can’t make that up! I’d have never known had my people back here not seen it.”
While Wilson has been in the music industry for years, this was her first time performing at Faster Horses Festival. Thankfully, the viral moment hasn’t made her worry about future performances.
“You know, I kind of view it as just another day in showbiz, because even when I was playing fairs and things like that, like, I would have a wardrobe malfunction, and you just got to keep rolling with it, you know?” she told Regalrumination.com.
“I was taught, no matter what happens, you just keep on going. And so I think back to ‘What would Dolly [Parton] do?’ She would laugh about it and she would probably pick on herself and make a joke and then just roll on.”
Wilson acknowledged that something similar might happen to her in the future and she shouldn’t let moments like this stop her from performing.
She continued: “And the truth is, I’m probably gonna split my pants again, and then I’ll have to make another joke about it. But it goes to show you—no pun intended—that we all put our pants on the same way, one leg at a time—and sometimes they split.”
The Louisiana native, who left her small farming community to chase her dreams in Nashville, has made a name for herself as a next-generation icon. The prolific singer-songwriter has earned praise from the industry and this year alone, she has won a Grammy for best country album, a People’s Choice Award for female country artist of the year and entertainer of the year at the 2024 Academy of Country Music Awards—just to name a few.
Wilson is showing no signs of slowing down. On August 23 her album, Whirlwind, will be released to the world, which the singer said is the “most cathartic and personal piece of art” she’s ever created.
“Somebody actually explained it to me the other day, they said [an album is] like your four-year-old kid who is about to go to preschool. There’s a time where you’re like: ‘Man, I can’t wait for them to go to school.’ And the closer it gets to actually sending them off to school, you start getting a little anxious. And that’s kind of where I’m at right now,” she told Regalrumination.com.
Wilson explained that for this album, she wanted to share parts of herself that she only discovered after releasing her album Bell Bottom Country—which she won the Grammy for best country album earlier this year—in 2022.
“I share a lot of my life with the world, and I’m in a happy, healthy relationship, and I caught myself writing a few love songs, and finally found me a man worth writing about. So I wanted to show that. I wanted to show that I do have that side of me too,” she said.
“Writing and recording this record just brought me a lot of peace during a time of my life that was constantly changing and of spinning around and around like a whirlwind. So it made me feel grounded, and it made me feel at home. And that’s how I hope people feel when they hear it.”
When asked if she had a favorite song on the album, Wilson said it’s like “like picking favorite children.” However, she said it’s been a joy to see people sing “Hang Tight Honey,” the lead single from her upcoming album, which was released in May.
“I will tell you right now, it’s really exciting for me to see the crowd singing, ‘Hang Tight Honey.’ Whatever my single is, at that time, you can see as it’s climbing up the chart. A handful of people know the song right when it comes out, and then it just seems that as it climbs, more and more people know it,” she explained.
“And that’s a good feeling when you see people connecting to something that you put your heart and soul into and you see them letting their hair down and cutting loose and enjoying themselves. It makes me enjoy myself.”
You can pre-order or pre-save her album, Whirlwind, here: