The Chicks sent shockwaves through the entertainment industry when they publicly took a stand against George Bush — and changed the course of country music forever.
'Just so you know,' she said between songs, “We do not want this war, this violence, and we’re ashamed that the President of the United States is from Texas.” She continued, 'I feel the President is ignoring the opinions of many in the US and alienating the rest of the world. My comments were made in frustration and one of the privileges of being an American is you are free to voice your own point of view.”
Mitch Mahan, who was program director at WIRK in West Palm Beach at the time, told the outlet that their station was simply listening to “what listeners ” when they decided to pull The Chicks from the airwaves. “And they were telling us they don’t want the Dixie Chicks,” he claimed. “Any business where you’ve got a product that’s extremely popular, and then one day it’s making everybody ill, well, you pull that product from your shelves.
Despite the apology, the Chicks continued to receive backlash from the country music scene. Toby Keith, who released “Courtesy of Red, White and Blue ” inspired by the victims of 9/11, displayed Maines’ photo next to an image of Saddam Hussein at his concerts. The Chicks, for their part, responded by posing nude on the cover of Entertainment Weekly while covered in graffiti phrases that included “big mouth” and “traitors.
“I think we were one of the first people to feel that ‘cancel culture’ and I think, you know, what we said — or, what I said — back then would not even be a thing today because it was really mild compared to what people say today,” Maines said during a 2020 episode of Watch What Happens Live With Andy Cohen. “On one hand, everyone has this forum where they can say whatever they want to say, but on the other hand this platform can move really quickly and ruin people’s lives.