How Maren Morris Spent Her First Night Away from CMA Awards After Stepping Back from Country Music

Weeks after announcing she is distancing herself from the country music industry, Maren Morris spent the day of the genre’s biggest award show out and about in New York City.

Morris, 33, was not in Nashville for the 2023 CMA Awards on Wednesday but instead spent her time attending various events in Manhattan.

Earlier in the day, the “My Church” singer — who said in September that she feels “very, very distanced” from country music and its politics — stopped by a SiriusXM press event in a long-sleeved, red cutout dress. Then, later in the evening, she was photographed leaving Watch What Happens Live with Andy Cohen in jeans, a green top and a long black leather jacket.

The Grammy winner shared an Instagram post of some of the highlights of her New York trip, including various shots of the sexy red dress, dinner at celeb hotspot Carbone and a photo with country singers Mickey Guyton and Brittney Spencer, who joined her for a performance on The Tonight Show on Tuesday.

The trio sang “The Tree,” which is featured on Morris’ newest EP The Bridge, along with “Get the Hell Out of Here.”

In a chat with Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon, the singer explained her decision to pump the brakes on her country music career. (She first told the Los Angeles Times in September that she thought she’d wanted to “burn [country] to the ground and start over,” but felt it was “burning itself down without my help”).

“I just felt like I was leaving some things in country music behind that didn’t really serve me anymore,” she explained. "And so it felt like calling [the EP] The Bridge felt like the step to the next thing, whatever it is.”

Morris continued, explaining that headlines declaring she was leaving country music were “very hyperbolic,” as there would always be a part of her that was country.

"I don't think it’s something you can really leave, because it’s a music that’s in me, and that’s what I grew up doing. It’s the music I write, even if I’ve been sort of genre-fluid my whole career. You can’t scrub the country music out,” she said. “I’m taking the good parts with me, and all are welcome. There were some facets of it that I didn’t really jive with anymore. I’m a lot happier now.”

In her interview with the L.A. Times, Morris explained that she’d faced challenges in advocating for her progressive beliefs, like supporting the LGBTQ+ community, taking a stand for the Black Lives Matter movement and critiquing people like Jason Aldean’s wife Brittany for making transphobic comments.

Meanwhile, Morris kicked off her New York trip on Monday with an intimate fan club show at Bowery Ballroom, during which she told the crowd she was going through the “weirdest year of my life.”

The star — who filed for divorce from husband Ryan Hurd in October after five years of marriage — said she was “going through some s---” and thanked fans for “leaning on you too hard" as she performed.