How Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert Went From ‘Grade A’ Feuding to Friends

The country music world is a tight-knit community, but with so much talent out there, the industry can be a cutthroat, competitive place—and between two of the genre’s biggest names, tensions were high for quite some time. “Follow Your Arrow” singer Kacey Musgraves and “Gunpowder & Led” songstress Miranda Lambert have long been some of the most influential artists in the country music sphere, but you might not be aware of the fact that up until recently, there was some major beef between these two musicians. Here, read all about their infamous feud and recent reconciliation. 

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The Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves feud explained

Over a decade ago, Kacey Musgraves penned the track “Mama’s Broken Heart.” “There was all this excitement behind ‘Mama’s Broken Heart’ for me. It was gonna be my first single and I loved the song so much. I had been a staff writer for years at that point, writing for other people and had finally felt like I was collecting songs that felt like me that I didn’t wanna pitch to anyone else,” she explained in a recent conversation with NPR. 

Unbeknownst to Musgraves, the song was pitched to Lambert without her consent, and ultimately, she recorded the song for her album Four the Record. In the end, Kacey recognizes that everything happened for a reason and it was ultimately for the best because it led to her hit track “Merry Go Round”—but the blow still stung.

Kacey got candid about their feud in a conversation with Variety, calling their beef “grass-fed, grade A.” However, despite their differences and the tension that existed over the years, a social media scroll led Kacey to the realization that maybe they had a bit more in common than she thought. 

How Kacey Musgraves and Miranda Lambert squashed their beef with an unexpected duet

In 2020, Kacey Musgraves and her then-husband, musician Ruston Kelly, finalized their divorce. Famously, Miranda Lambert was married to fellow country music star Blake Shelton before they, too, divorced in 2015. 

“We’ve come together after years of really, honestly, not being friends,” Kacey opened up to Variety about Miranda. “I had this idea one day when I saw her on Instagram, riding one of her horses, and I thought, ‘Well, I guess we have two things in common: horses and divorces.’ And I was like, ‘Wait, that’s a song.’ Then I took it a step further: ‘What if I write it with her? What if it’s a duet? F— it, I’m gonna reach out.’”

She continued, “I hadn’t spoken to her in years and was like, ‘Hey, I have this idea. If anybody would get it, it would be you. We’ve had our s— over the years, but this would be really funny.’ And she was like, ‘I’m down.’”

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The song “Horses and Divorces” appeared on Kacey’s most recent album Middle of Nowhere, and the lyrics paint a picture of their long-standing rift. 

“I’d ride in on my high horse, you’d still be higher/And a few years ago, you’d have set me on fire/There were chips on our shoulders, but now that we’re older/It’s all whiskey under the bridge,” they sing on the track. 

After all this time, we’re happy to see Miranda Lambert and Kacey Musgraves patch things up. Their story is a beautiful reminder that it’s never too late to reach out, find common ground and turn old wounds into new friendships. Plus, when you see Lambert mentoring rising country stars like Ella Langley, you know there’s so much for them to learn from each other—not just as collaborators, but as friends who’ve walked similar paths.