One day after her Playboy interview and photos were posted online, Maren Morris stopped by the Ty Bentli Show to talk about why she decided to take part in the Playboy feature.
NCD has obtained exclusive excerpts from the interview that will air on country radio on June 29 [update, the interview was posted to Ty’s podcast on June 19—Listen Here].
Here are a few of Maren’s choice quotes regarding:
Public response and media interest from the Playboy photos and interview:
“Oh, yeah [it’s been positive]. I was just talking about this . . . you really can’t win. You could tweet ‘I love apples’ and someone would be like ‘F you, apples are awful.’ I’ve learned you can’t really win, so I’m just going to do what I believe in, and do me. I look at people like Dolly Parton, who did the cover of Playboy back in the ’70s, so that was sort of my guiding light when I was deciding whether or not to do the shoot.
“I kind of knew when I did it that it was going to be a little incendiary, but I didn’t really expect people to have such insane rage over it. That was the unforeseen part, people coming after Ryan [Hurd], people on my team, people that were a part of the shoot. I was just like, ‘Oh, my god, you guys aren’t even mad, this is such faux rage.’ This must be a slow news week because I’m literally wearing less on my Women’s Health cover.”
Not focusing on the haters:
I did those photos for me . . . not to be weird about it, I was just like, ‘Well, I look like this, I work out, while I look like this I want to have pretty photos of it.’ I guess for the first time I’ll go out and buy Playboy because I want to have some hard copies of it. I’m really proud of what we did. I love that it was all women on the shoot, so I felt super safe, and [the photos are] not nude, so everyone chill the F out.”
Parents and family seeing the Playboy photos and interview:
“I sent it to them last week when I got the advance copy. They were like totally cool with it. They know who I am. I think at the end of the day, it’s like, I’m married, I am in love with my partner, he supports me to no end—my music and me as a woman—so I feel like if I’m going to impart any wisdom, it’s coming from that angle.”
Challenging herself:
“Every year of my career, I’ve done something that’s scared me, from this [Playboy shoot] to doing ‘The Middle’ with Zedd. I thought that there’s a chance, if I do this song with this EDM guy, country is going to think that I’m like leaving them behind or something. Luckily that didn’t happen, and that wasn’t the case, and it was like a stupid fear. I didn’t get into this to be a torchbearer for my gender or anything like that. I just think that’s organically happened because there weren’t enough women getting airplay on the charts. As someone who was [getting airplay], I want to speak up for my female artist friends who work maybe harder than I do and don’t get an ounce of what I’ve received . . . I just naturally have fallen into this role . . . I want it to be more equal, I want everyone to get their fair share because everyone is so f’in talented and inspires me.”
