Here we go again…
It’s been nearly a year and a half since Morgan Wallen teamed up with Canadian pop singer Tate McRae on their hit duet, “What I Want,” off of his 37-song album, I’m The Problem. Fast forward to today, and the Sneedville native’s massive project is still sitting at No.5 on the Billboard 200 chart, and McRae’s still receiving flak for the No.1 hit.
Obviously, Wallen’s first official female collaboration and fifth single from the album turned out to be a huge success for him and McRae, earning the “TIT FOR TATE” singer her first No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Buttttt, as the story goes with anyone associated with Wallen, it also brought a heavy load of backlash from her fanbase, who reprimanded her for working with the “MAGA” artist.
People love to assume Wallen’s political stance, despite the fact that he’s never publicly confirmed where he stands. Still, as a patriotic, hunting-loving country artist with a controversial past, he’s often been painted by outsiders as the genre’s MAGA poster boy.
That assumption has also spilled over onto artists associated with him, including McRae and, more recently, Ella Langley, who was also lumped into the same political narrative simply by association following their hit, “I Can’t Love You Anymore.”
As for the Calgary-native, given that their hit single was well over a year ago, McRae has in fact spoken out about the backlash in the past, defending the song in a 2025 Rolling Stone article by stating, “I honestly just got the opportunity to do a country song, and I was like, ‘Oh, this is cool.’ And I wanted to cross genres really bad...It was just about the song for me. I didn’t realize how much a song would be connected to all the other factors, and it really shocked me.”
Then just last month, in a Variety interview, she reaffirmed with a slightly vague but still telling answer, “I think it’s pretty obvious what kind of person I am and the things I support. And I hope that my fans can see that through the things that I’m putting my energy towards.“
Welp, keeping the conversation going, once again McRae was questioned on the controversy that has continued to follow her in a new interview with W Magazine. Reflecting on her “pop prowess” alongside the backlash she’s withstood over the years, they, of course, brought up Wallen and the political assumptions that came with her collaboration.
McRae simply responded, “It’s crazy to think that one song could define a whole person. There are many aspects of my personality that three-quarters of my audience has no idea about. You hope one day you figure out a way to show all aspects of it.” Which, in my opinion, basically translates to: why are we still dissecting my supposedly political views when you don’t actually know anything about me?
To McRae’s point, it never fails to amaze me how quickly people can define an artist based on one song, one collaboration, or one interaction. Especially when McRae and Wallen have yet to even meet in person or publicly acknowledge one another.
Nonetheless, as expected, her fan base is still unhappy with what was ultimately a pretty inoffensive response, taking it as further “proof” that she must be MAGA.
At this point, the constant scrutiny surrounding artists’ political affiliations is just exhausting, and I can’t blame McRae for keeping her responses to these prying questions civil. After all, the 23-year-old singer reached a major career milestone with the song and has openly expressed her admiration for country music. The fact that some fans now expect her to discredit that experience just to distance herself from political assumptions feels pretty ridiculous.