The country music star Kenny Chesney is speaking out this week to recount a moment in which he “snapped” and stopped a concert to punch a fan in the mouth.
Chesney Punches Fan
While appearing on “The Howard Stern Show” on Wednesday, Chesney recalled “snapping” and punching a fan in the mouth. This came after the man physically picked him up onstage during a concert with Joe Walsh. While Chesney didn’t specify exactly when this altercation took place, he performed with Walsh in 2007 on his “Flip Flop Summer Tour.” He later performed with Walsh again on “The Big Revival Tour” in 2015.
“We were in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,” remembered Chesney, 57. “I was playing the Steelers football stadium and I thought it was cool to come up in the middle of the stadium, and almost like a boxer in a way, like walk through the crowd to the stage — that kind of thing.”
“But the security got way ahead of me and all of a sudden I’m by myself on my way to the stage and I see this guy coming,” he continued. “I can just see him out the peripheral and walking to the stage.”
Chesney went on to say that the fan “buckled down” as he approached him.
“[He] picks me up with his arms right at my knees and holds me up. And I just snapped, and I just I hit him right in the mouth,” the country music star confessed.
Chesney can remember thinking that the man was going to sue him.
“This is going to cost me every penny that I made tonight,” he reportedly thought at the time.
Walsh Weighs In
After the concert ended, Chesney talked to Walsh about the altercation.
“We’re backstage after the show and Joe’s on the bus,” he recounted. “So, I said, ‘Joe, did you see what happened at the beginning of the show?’ And he said, ‘Yeah.’ And I said, ‘Well, what would you do if somebody had picked you up like that?’ He goes, ‘I would have asked him to take me to the stage.'”
It seems like Walsh knew exactly how to handle that!
Chesney Honors Jimmy Buffett
Later in this same interview, Chesney revealed that he brought the legendary Jimmy Buffett’s ashes on stage while the star was posthumously inducted into the 2024 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Indeed, Chesney alleged that he and guitarist Mac McAnally snuck Buffett’s ashes into the ceremony while they performed in his honor.
“We were sitting back there warming up, trying to figure out our parts and stuff, and Mac comes up to me and he goes, ‘Look at this,’ and it was a small urn,” Chesney remembered. “He had Jimmy’s ashes in his coat pocket.”
“So Jimmy’s ashes were in Mac McAnally’s coat pocket onstage with us as he was getting inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame,” he added.
According to Chesney, Buffett’s daughter Savannah Buffett gave McAnally her father’s ashes before the performance.
“So even after he passed, Jimmy found a way to join the party,” concluded Chesney.
Chesney is a true country music legend, and there will never be another like him. In the end, the fact that he stopped a concert to punch a fan just goes to show that he is one celebrity that is not to be messed with.
God bless you, Kenny Chesney!