Garth Brooks Sends Message to 'A-Holes' Who Won't Drink Bud Light Anymore

Country music star Garth Brooks is opening a new bar in Nashville, Tennessee this summer: and he wants to make it clear that everybody is welcome, regardless of how they identify. Unless, that is, they're an asshole.

During a recent Billboard Country Live panel, Brooks made a tacit reference to the recent transphobic backlash against Bud Light. After the beer brand featured transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney in a digital marketing campaign, it became a scapegoat in online culture wars, with conservatives loudly asserting their boycott of the product.

This controversy surrounding the brand has led some venues to stop distributing Bud Light in a bid to appease angry customers. But unlike other bar owners on Nashville's Broadway—including fellow musicians Kid Rock and John Rich, who have both stopped selling the beer—Brooks is not caving to that pressure with his new establishment, which he has named Friends in Low Places.

It is his hope, he explained, that Friends in Low Places will be a safe and welcoming space where everybody respects each other. And anybody who disagrees? They're an "asshole."

"I want it to be a place you feel safe in," he said. "I want it to be a place where you feel like there are manners and people like one another. 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 asshole," he added, "there are plenty of other places on lower Broadway."

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