Miranda Lambert has broken her silence on a long-rumored bar fight with Nickelback’s Chad Kroeger.
The country star, 42, admitted on the “Popcast” podcast Thursday that she threw moonshine in the rock singer’s face during a 2010 confrontation in Nashville. “I threw moonshine in his face. I did do that,” Lambert said on the show, adding that she felt “nervous” answering the question after fourteen years of speculation.
The “Gunpowder & Lead” singer revealed the drink left Kroeger’s hair “wrecked.” When asked whether her actions were “playful and mischievous,” she pushed back on that framing. “It was a lot and it was just a late night and no one was in their best state,” Lambert confessed during the interview. She added a pointed coda about their current standing: “I don’t know if we’re fine now — but I don’t care.”
Lambert stopped short of confirming or denying the most explosive detail that has dogged the story since it first surfaced. The rumor that she punched Kroeger in the face went unaddressed directly.
The incident originally made headlines in 2010 when Lambert was celebrating her 27th birthday in Music City. According to a witness account reported at the time, Kroeger “kept persisting” that Lambert do shots with him and she repeatedly refused. The witness claimed Kroeger told her she “didn’t have to be a bitch about it,” which prompted Lambert to grab the shot and toss it on him.
The confrontation escalated further. Lambert’s then-fiancé Blake Shelton, now 50, attempted to attack Kroeger after the drink-throwing, but bystanders held him back, the source added.
Kroeger has maintained complete public silence on the fight in the years since.
Shelton, however, alluded to the incident four years later in Lambert’s 2014 Rolling Stone cover story. “People always try to pop off or call her bluff at bars,” Shelton said of his then-wife. He continued with a thinly veiled reference: “One of them I don’t want to say the guy’s name, but he’s the lead singer of a very popular rock band.” Shelton teased, “His initials are C.K.”
Lambert and Shelton became engaged in 2010, the same year as the Kroeger incident, and married the following year. Their marriage lasted four years before they announced their divorce in July 2015.
The podcast appearance marks the first time Lambert has publicly discussed any aspect of the altercation. Her confirmation of the moonshine-throwing, paired with her refusal to elaborate on the punch rumor and her dismissive attitude toward Kroeger, adds a new chapter to one of country-rock’s most persistent backstage legends.
The “Mama’s Broken Heart” singer has built a career on songs about fiery women who don’t back down, and her own barroom behavior has occasionally matched that persona. The 2010 incident came early in her rise to becoming one of Nashville’s biggest stars, before she had fully crossed over into the household-name status she enjoys today.
Lambert’s “don’t care” attitude toward whether she and Kroeger are on good terms suggests little appetite for reconciliation or further explanation. For his part, the Nickelback frontman has never offered his side of what happened that night in Nashville.
The podcast revelation arrives as Lambert continues touring and releasing new music, her public profile as high as ever following her recent marriage to former NYPD officer Brendan McLoughlin.