Kacey Musgraves wants you to know there's more to country music than the old-fashioned stereotypes that so many people are used to.
Over the weekend, the 33-year-old Grammy-winning singer-songwriter was honored by GLAAD at their annual Media Awards in Los Angeles over the weekend for her long, passionate LGBTQ+ allyship, and while walking the red carpet, she spoke to Out about what it means to her to be recognized for her support of the community.
"I feel like I would love to get to a place in this world where being an ally doesn't get a gold star," Musgraves told Out. "I think, hands down, everyone should be as loud and as proud as I am, but that's not the case, and until then I will continue to be loud and proud."
She also opened up about the new faces of country music, and how out, gay musicians, like friend and Brothers Osborne frontman T.J. Osborne (who won his first Grammy on Sunday night and who publicly came out last year in an emotional interview with Time), are changing the way fans and listeners perceive the genre that can have a very conservative and not-so-tolerant reputation.
"It's really beautiful. It's a scary time, but it's also a really beautiful time in a lot of ways," she said. "My friend T.J. being one example of a man finally feeling like he can be himself and live his truth and let people know that the songs that he's writing, what they're about, who they're about. You know, that's huge. That's powerful."
"The thing about country music is that it's a genre that has been built on real songs and real stories since the beginning," she said. "I don't understand why a certain perspective would be excluded from that. I think that it's about real people, real struggles, love, all these big things like that we all experience as humans and that's not just for straight people."
Watch Kacey Musgraves speak to Out on the GLAAD red carpet in the video below.
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