After raising some eyebrows on Instagram, Kacey Musgraves has addressed her rumored feud with Miranda Lambert — and as it turns out, it wasn’t just rumors.
Though the two women have since found common ground, coming together to collaborate on upcoming track “Horses and Divorces,” Musgraves told NPR in an interview published Wednesday (March 11) that she and Lambert have “had our s–t” in the past. “It was two singers from two nearby, small Texas towns,” she began. “There’s a lot that comes with that. Then we each take our own different paths, both leading us to Nashville at different times.”
Some of the tension seemingly came from a situation that arose more than 15 years ago, in which Musgraves says she had written the country anthem “Mama’s Broken Heart” while working as a songwriter for Warner/Chappell. “It was gonna be my first single, and I loved the song so much,” she explained to the outlet. “Then, the song gets pitched to [Miranda] without my consent or knowledge. It was a tricky situation. She ended up loving the song and she really wanted it.”
Lambert would record “Mama’s Broken Heart” for her 2011 album Four the Record, and the track would peak at No. 20 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2013. Meanwhile, Musgraves went “back to the drawing board” and came back with “Merry Go ‘Round,” her debut single that reached No. 63 on the chart.
As for the two women? The “Follow Your Arrow” singer says, “We’d lost touch for years and wouldn’t consider each other friends” — until Musgraves saw Lambert “on Instagram one day, riding one of her horses, and I was like, ‘Well, we ain’t friends, but I guess we have two things in common: horses and divorces.’”
Musgraves, who split from ex-husband Ruston Kelly in 2020 after three years of marriage, then realized: “‘Wait, that could be a really funny song. What if it’s a duet with her? What if I got her to write on it?’”
“I just randomly reached out to her, and I was like, ‘I know we’ve had our s–t over the years, but listen, we’ve at least got two things in common,’” she continued of Lambert, who had been married to Blake Shelton for four years up until their 2015 divorce. “‘I’m not trying to be your friend. You got your life, I have mine. But I think this would be a pretty f–king funny song’ … And she was like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m in, let’s do it.’”
“We aired out any of the old laundry,” Musgraves added. “We had some laughs and wrote the song in a matter of a few hours. I think it could be also a micro representation of what I wish that the world would do sometimes, just f–king sit down and poke fun at each other, have a beer and call it a day.”
The interview comes shortly after the two women turned some heads on Instagram Stories, with Musgraves posting an old clip of herself looking unenthused while Lambert accepted an award at the 2013 CMAs. “You knew that I’d said some things about you,” Musgraves wrote at the time, after which Lambert reposted it and replied, “Well I’ve done my fair share of s–t talkin’ too.”
Now, the ladies will blend their voices on “Horses and Divorces,” one of 13 tracks on Musgraves’ recently announced album Middle of Nowhere. The singer launched the new era Wednesday with the release of lead single “Dry Spell.” The May 1-slated LP also features collaborations with Willie Nelson, Billy Strings and Gregory Allan Isakov.
