Brian Kelley says he didn’t want Florida Georgia Line to break up and was ‘shocked’ when Tyler Hubbard recorded a song with Tim McGraw

Tell your side of the story.

Florida Georgia Line ended their reign of terror over country music in 2022, when it was announced that the duo of Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley would be splitting up to pursue solo careers.

There was much speculation that the duo had split due to political differences between the two after Hubbard unfollowed Kelley on social media during the 2020 election. (Hubbard and his wife Hayley supported Joe Biden, while Kelley and his wife Brittney supported Donald Trump). But since the split, they’ve never really discussed what led to the breakup, and all we could do was speculate — until Hubbard decided to open up earlier this week.

It was already clear that there was tension between the two, after Kelley recently released her latest single, “Kiss my boots” it appeared to be an attack on Hubbard with cryptic social media posts that sounded a lot like a high school student trying to prove she was over her ex.

But Hubbard, the “Georgia” half of FGL, made an appearance on the Barstool Sports podcast Bussin’ with the boys with Will Compton and Taylor Lewan, where he confirmed he doesn’t talk much with his former bandmate these days – saying the split took him by surprise:

“For me it was really unexpected. But BK came to me and was like, ‘Man, I really feel like I want to do a solo thing.’

He also revealed that he tried to talk Kelley out of it, with the duo even going to therapy together to try and resolve their issues. But it turns out Kelley was adamant about it, even though he still wanted to keep the Florida Georgia Line together. However, Hubbard wasn’t going to do that and essentially gave him an ultimatum: it was either FGL or solo, but not both.

“I don’t have the capacity to have two careers. And it’s also going to get super sticky. When we write songs, who are we writing for? When we received two show offers, an FGL date and a solo date, what do we take?

I tell myself that I don’t even see how this would work logistically, let alone emotionally.

Well, apparently his comments didn’t sit well with Kelley.

The “Florida” half of the duo also wanted to tell his side of the story, so in an emergency podcast he also joined Compton and Lewan where he refuted Hubbard’s version… sort of.

I say sort of because honestly it seems like he was just confirming a lot of what Hubbard said. He wanted to release music solo, Hubbard didn’t see how it would work if they tried to pursue a solo career while also being a duo, and they ended up breaking up.

So where does the disagreement come from?

Kelley says there had been discussions about doing solo music as early as 2016, but the two agreed they would wait until after their contract was up, and after the release of FGL’s fifth album, before pursuing these others. avenues.

Well, it turns out that although Hubbard said he didn’t want them to pursue solo careers outside of FGL, he had actually gone behind Kelley’s back and recorded a song with Tim McGraw amid the social unrest of 2020 — and when he told Kelley about the song, he also informed her that they would be playing it at Biden’s inauguration.

“Tyler had released solo music before even me. Before we even released our fifth album, he had a few songs out, he played Biden’s inauguration, which was huge for being a solo act with Tim McGraw. He released another song. I only started releasing music in April…

It immediately rocked on the radio, in early January 2021 and I only released the music in April, then the album in June.

And Kelley says he was blindsided by Hubbard’s decision to take the first step toward going solo with “Undivided,” the duet with Tim McGraw:

“Surprised. Shocked, for sure. I thought we agreed on the plan.

Coming back to my main goal, it is to protect FGL. I didn’t think it was a good idea, if I had done it or if he had done it.

He also says he tried to present Hubbard with a plan to maintain FGL while pursuing their own solo careers, where they would both be signed to the same label with the same management and play 3-hour concerts featuring no only FGL but also give each of them time to play their music solo. But Hubbard wasn’t having it – despite the fact that he had also released solo music.

Kelley talks a lot about what was going on at the time without really saying much. He also addresses political disagreements, but when asked if “Kiss My Boots” was about Hubbard, he doesn’t answer. Like, come on man, it’s clearly about him, stay there if you think so.

But it seems it all comes down to Hubbard insisting that they wait to pursue solo careers until FGL’s latest album comes out, then do it behind Kelley’s back and do it anyway – then accuse Kelley of being the one who wanted to go solo. .

Regardless, one thing they can both agree on is that FGL won’t be reuniting anytime soon.