Morgan Wallen shocked his fans at a recent show in New York when he wasn’t sporting his signature baseball cap but a cowboy hat – what’s going on?
Earlier this week (17 September), Wallen performed hits such as Last Night, Lies Lies Lies, and Love Somebody before ERNEST joined him for I Had Some Help (the #1 hit he shared with Post Malone), Heartless, and Flower Shops. The pair, who performed alongside Wallen’s lead guitarist, Dominic Frost, and fellow artist HARDY, were in New York for the city’s Honors Gala.
The event commemorated Seth England, the CEO and founder of Big Loud, who was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 49th annual TJ Martell Foundation Gala due to his impact on the music industry and cancer research.
England noted in an Instagram post that the event raised over $2.6M for the TJ Martell Foundation’s fight against cancer.
While the event was undoubtedly important, fans who saw footage of Wallen’s performance on social media were distracted by his new look, and, honestly, we can’t blame them.
“Morgan in a cowboy hat,” one fan wrote, accompanied by the fire emoji, while another fan said they’re “loving the cowboy hat”. Another fan added, “Cowboy hat era is back!” While Wallen received even more comments about his look: “@morganwallen please never take that hat off. Thank you,” “The cowboy hat is something,” “The hat!!!! The music!!!!,” “Favourite cowboy,” and more.
You can check out footage of Wallen performing at the event below.
Last week, it was announced that Wallen has dominated the nominations for this year’s CMA Awards with seven nominations, including Entertainer of the Year, Male Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year, and Music Video of the Year (the latter two categories for his collaboration with Post Malone, I Had Some Help).
The news arrived a month after Wallen started teasing new music again. Far from the first time one of his unreleased songs has blown fans away; the mysterious Morgan Wallen song Always Have, Always Will went viral on TikTok in July.