The country music star Jason Aldean has revealed that he suffered a “breakdown” months after the devastating 2017 Las Vegas festival shooting that claimed the lives of 60 people.
Las Vegas Shooting
Aldean, 48, was performing onstage at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when a deranged gunman opened fire on October 1, 2017. While 60 people were killed, 800 more were injured, making it one of the most devastating mass shootings in history.
“It was a festival like we’ve done a million times,” Aldean said while appearing on the Armchair Expert podcast. “It was just obviously something that we weren’t prepared for.”
Aldean went on to say that after the shooting, his schedule was incredibly busy. After reuniting with his extended family, he opened for Saturday Night Live! days later.
“We finally got out of there the next afternoon, home and you’re just glad to be home, show up, my mom’s crying,” Aldean recalled. “You know, my oldest daughter was in school, freaking out, thinking that somebody was trying to shoot us, so all the details were still kind of coming out.”
Immediately after his Saturday Night Live! performance, Aldean hit the road to honor the victims.
“Sunday morning, I was on a flight going back to Las Vegas to go to the hospital and see all the victims. That was tough,” he admitted. “People hadn’t recovered from their wounds yet.”
Aldean’s ‘Breakdown’
From there, Aldean finished the remaining month of his tour, performing all over the country. Two months after the shooting, Aldean’s wife Brittany gave birth to their son Memphis. This finally allowed Aldean to go home, be with his family, and come to terms with the tragic events that had happened.
That’s when the breakdown hit Aldean when he was least expecting it.
“All of a sudden at home, we had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day,” he explained. “For me, you know, I kind of had a breakdown in my house one day. It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything, just getting laid on you.”
Aldean went on to say that his overwhelming emotions stemmed the many what “could have been” thoughts he experienced in the wake of the shooting.
“I ended up having a moment at my house where I broke down thinking about all the people that I could have lost, all the people that we did lose as far as fans, but my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things,” he said.
Aldean Felt ‘Guilty’
Aldean confessed that at the time, he struggled to decipher the emotions that he was feeling.
“It’s easier to talk about now. At the time it wasn’t because you’re still trying to comprehend what had just happened,” he added. “You know, my bass player, my best friend for the last 25 years, his bass had a bullet lodged in it that he was wearing when we were on stage.”
“For our little family, our little crew, we got so lucky, not one injury to any of our guys,” he stated. “And you’re happy about that, but then you’re like, feel guilty to be happy about there’s like this guilt-ridden thing.”
Despite all of this, Aldean didn’t go to therapy. When asked why, he replied, “I guess [I’m] too Southern. Here’s the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for all the crews and everybody else. My therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were there. We all talked about it amongst each other.”
Aldean’s Connection To Vegas
Eight years later, Aldean said that the shooting will “forever connect us to that city.”
“At some point you can either run from it or accept it and try and make something good out of it,” he said. “And that’s what we tried to do.”
Aldean concluded by saying that he hopes to return to Las Vegas for an extended visit at some point soon.
“I think that’s probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies, but for me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it,” he said. “This is what I’ve wanted to do from the time I can remember.”
The Las Vegas mass shooting will always be remembered as one of the worst tragedies in American history. God bless Aldean for being so open about his struggles in coming to terms with it.
Please join us in saying a prayer for Aldean and all those who are still affected by the Las Vegas shooting to this day.