Earlier this month marked the ninth anniversary of the Las Vegas Strip massacre, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
On October 1, 2017, 60 people were killed at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas, Nevada. The three-day country music festival featured performances from Eric Church, Sam Hunt, and Jason Aldean, who was on stage when the gunfire erupted. More than 850 people were injured during the attack, which lasted approximately 11 minutes and left lasting trauma on survivors, families, and everyone affected by the tragedy.
Aldean’s wife of 11 years, Brittany, recently reflected on the traumatic experience during an episode of Get Real! with Caroline Hobby, revealing that she was eight months pregnant at the time and feared she would never get to meet her baby boy. Brittany was expecting the couple’s first child together, Memphis, and fortunately wasn’t in her usual spot beside the stage when the shooting began.
Instead, Brittany, who was living in Las Vegas at the time, was spending time with local friends in a nearby tent. When she heard the gunfire, she immediately feared that Jason was being targeted and rushed toward the stage: “I was just like, you know, we’re doing it together.” She continued, affirming, “It was war. Being in war and not wanting to be in war. I’ve never heard or seen anything like that in my life.”
Brittany also shared that at the time, the gunshots were so loud that everyone thought there were multiple gunmen on the ground, noting that they all went into protective mode: “Everyone was like, does anyone have a gun? You know, we all own guns and all the things, but I think we had just been in Canada, so our buses were all stripped and we didn’t have anything. And it’s just like a really hard thing to not feel protected when you think there’s going to be multiple shooters coming around the corner at any moment.”
Describing the visceral sound of the bullets passing by in a flash, she said that there was a looming fear that at any second, with any motion, they could’ve hit, leaving her to think it was the end of her life. The crew also kept instructing Brittany not to go into stress-induced labor, to which she proclaimed, “That is actually the least of my worries right now. The boys were so worried about me going into labor because it was chaos, and I just went around to each of them and said how much I loved them.”
In a terrifying turn of events, the group decided that everyone needed to get to the tour bus, a decision Brittany was initially hesitant about because she knew the gunfire was coming from that direction. Despite her fears, they hoisted her up and carried her. She recalled, “I had to; I didn’t have a choice, and then the bus was shot six times.”
Brittany went on to reflect on the emotional aftermath of the tragedy, particularly the weight it must have placed on her husband: “I can’t imagine how he feels cause it was his fans. I can’t imagine that feeling of like, those people were there because of me and that has got to be such a heavy burden to bear.” Adding, “My husband doesn’t speak a lot on things like that, but that sea of awesome fans were his fans, and so that’s just got to be so heavy.”
Although they initially left Nevada following the tragedy, Brittany said they eventually felt called to return to the site of the shooting and visit the trauma units. They also brought therapists out on tour for the remainder of the year.
As for Brittany, she shared that the experience strengthened her faith, although it also left her struggling with questions about why the tragedy happened. She admitted, “We still have a lot of questions to be honest.”
Luckily, the birth of her son also came at a kismet time, with Memphis being born exactly two months after the shooting, “it was a really great thing for our lives obviously, but we were just so not well that giving us that joy was such a blessing.”
Aldean also remembered the catastrophic day on its recent anniversary, taking to his Instagram story to write: “9 years later and this day never gets easier. Thinking of our Route 91 family a lot today.”
Just one week after the tragedy, Aldean made an emotional appearance on Saturday Night Live, opening the show with a performance of Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.” In the years since, as we all know, he has continued touring and performing for fans across the country.
With his 2026 Songs About Us Tour wrapping up earlier this fall, Aldean has just one more show scheduled for the year. He’ll return to Las Vegas on December 11 alongside Luke Bryan for their final Double-Down concert.
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