Maren Morris is walking away from country music.
The 33-year-old singer is switching record labels from Columbia Nashville to Columbia Records because she began to feel "very, very distanced" from the industry and its politics and insisted it was time to "step outside" of the drama within the country "community".
She told the Los Angeles Times newspaper of country music: "I thought I’d like to burn it to the ground and start over. But it’s burning itself down without my help.”
The 'Get the Hell Out Of Here' singer has been a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ+ community and the Black Lives Matter movement, and she admitted pushing for change only led to her feeling isolated.
She said: “I’ve always been an asker of questions and a status quo challenger just by being a woman. So it wasn’t really even a choice.
"The further you get into the country music business, that’s when you start to see the cracks. And once you see it, you can’t un-see it...
"If you truly love this type of music and you start to see problems arise, it needs to be criticized. Anything this popular should be scrutinised if we want to see progress.
"But I’ve kind of said everything I can say. I always thought I’d have to do middle fingers in the air jumping out of an airplane, but I’m trying to mature here and realize I can just walk away from the parts of this that no longer make me happy."
Maren admitted being female in the industry is particularly tough.
She said: "Being one of the few women that had any success on country radio, everything you do is looked at under a microscope. You’re scrutinised more than your male peers, even when you’re doing well.
"So I’ve had to clear all of that out of my head this year and just write songs. A lot of the drama within the community, I’ve chosen to step outside out of it.”
