Miranda Lambert and boyfriend Anderson East say they don't support Garth Brooks' decision to lip-sync during his performance at the 2017 CMA Awards.
Videos by Wide Open Country
East shared his thoughts on Brooks' rendition of "Ask Me How I Know" via a post shared on his Instagram page.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BbTTOuvnBDq/
Lambert later replied to East's post with the following comment. "High Five on this babe. if you can't sing then don't. It's better to be honest than to pretend. I think it's bull shit. My favorite performances in the show were live live. The truth."
However, Brooks himself was the first to address the decision to lip-synch while talking with press directly after the show.
"We're in the middle of 12 shows in 10 days," he explained with a noticeably raspy voice. "Not 10 shows in 12 days, 12 shows in 10 days. We did a game-time call on whether to sing the track or lip-sync, and decided to lip-sync. The voice just isn't there anymore, and you want to represent country music as best you can."
Brooks then went on to praise Lambert for her performance of "To Learn Her" during the award ceremony. "You know who fought the good fight tonight, in my opinion? Miranda Lambert. She's one of the few females that we play, so you'd think she'd want to play it safe. She went out and stuck country music in everyone's faces tonight. Traditional country music."
It's important to note that Brooks decided to skip one song to help preserve his voice for multiple shows for dedicated fans. Although it's easy to say, "he could have just not played at all," the last-minute decision would have dramatically altered the flow and production of the awards ceremony, which takes months to plan.
Brooks was also upfront about the reason why he chose to lip sync, which is something he could have easily tiptoed around or neglected to comment on at all. By now, Brooks likely knows the limits of his voice. We've seen decades of great performances from the country star, so slamming him for making a tough decision seems a little misplaced.
Also, Brooks is far from the first country artist to lip-sync during a major award show. Rascal Flatts lip-synched their hit "Rewind" at the 2014 ACM Awards because of vocal issues. It's a touchy subject that often brings debate.
So far, neither East, Lambert or Brooks have supplied additional comments on the issue.
