By DEIRDRE DURKAN-SIMONDS, US ASSOCIATE SHOWBUSINESS EDITOR
Country singer Jason Aldean says he suffered a breakdown in the months after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting in Las Vegas, where 60 people were killed and more than 800 injured during his performance.
The 48-year-old superstar was on stage on October 1, 2017, when gunfire erupted in what remains the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
'It was a festival like we've done a million times,' Aldean recalled during Monday's episode of the Armchair Expert podcast. 'It was just obviously something that we weren't prepared for.'
In the days immediately after the attack, Aldean's life moved at a relentless pace.
He reunited with family, appeared on Saturday Night Live to honor victims and then flew back to Las Vegas to visit survivors in the hospital.
'We finally got out of there the next afternoon, home and you're just glad to be home, show up my mom's crying,' he said. '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.'
While looking back at his trip to visit victims, he admitted, 'That was tough. People hadn't recovered from their wounds yet.'
Despite the emotional weight, Aldean pressed on with his tour, performing for another month before shifting focus to family life when his wife Brittany gave birth to their son Memphis two months later.
It was at home, surrounded by loved ones, that Aldean finally allowed himself to process what had happened.
'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,' he revealed.
The singer said the emotions stemmed from an avalanche of 'could have been' thoughts.
'I ended up having a moment at my house where I kind of broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost...my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things,' he explained.
Though grateful that none of his bandmates or crew were physically harmed, his bassist’s instrument stopped a bullet.
Following the horrific event, Aldean admitted that relief was mixed with survivor’s guilt.
'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,' he recalled on the Armchair Expert podcast
'You're happy about that, but then you're like, feel guilty to be happy about there's like this guilt ridden thing,' he said.
When asked by host Dax Shepard if he sought professional counseling, Aldean admitted he had not.
'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 kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other,' he confessed.
Looking back, he said the tragedy permanently bonded him to Las Vegas.
'At some point you can either kind of run from it or accept it and try and make something good out of it. And that's kind of what we tried to do,' he said.
Aldean hinted that he hopes to return to the city in the future under different circumstances.
'I think that's probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies,' he said. 'But for me to just stop touring and even doing it the way we do it... this is what I've wanted to do from the time I can remember.'
On the anniversary of the mass shooting last year, he wrote: '7 years later and this day never gets easier. Sending love out to everybody in the Route 91 family today.'
Previously, he described the mass shooting as 'the worst night' of his life.
Despite the emotional weight, Aldean pressed on with his tour, performing for another month before shifting focus to family life when his wife Brittany gave birth to their son two months later; seen in 2023
The singer said the emotions stemmed from an avalanche of 'could have been' thoughts
'Not a day goes by that we don't think about the people who lost their lives and the families who have forever been affected by it,' he said. 'October 1st will always be a day for us that is extremely hard to relive.'
Back in 2020, his wife Brittany took to social media on the third anniversary to write: 'On one hand it seems like an eternity ago, a nightmare you try to forget. On the other hand it's vividness makes it seem like it was yesterday.'
‘I was 8 months pregnant (had Memphis 2 months to the day from the shooting) and my husband was prepping like any other day to entertain thousands of fans. I used to live in Vegas so I had a bunch of friends at the show... little did we know our lives would change forever,’ she recalled. ‘The sound, the chaos, the overwhelming sadness and heartache... it’s something that never leaves you.’
She concluded her post by writing: ‘Our hearts still break for the families who lost a loved one. We are thinking of each and every one of you today, and everyday. And to the men and women who ran towards the bullets to protect all of us... WE ARE FOREVER GRATEFUL.’