Kacey Musgraves hits back at Kristi Noem over concert row
Kacey Musgraves fired back at Kristi Noem on Oct. 12 after Noem criticised her for welcoming Texas Senate candidate James Talarico to a Dallas concert. The Texas country music star replied directly to Noem on X. Her message was a single sentence about a dog.
Talarico had attended the Dallas stop of Musgraves' Middle of Nowhere Tour on Saturday, according to Billboard. He posted a photo from the evening and wrote, "Thank you for having me last night, Kacey Musgraves!" Talarico, who thanked Musgraves by name in his post, is a candidate for the U.S. Senate in Texas, as noted by The Hollywood Reporter.
Noem answered with matching posts on X and Facebook. "I'll take Ella Langley over Kacey Musgraves any day," she wrote. She added a second line with a Texas political contrast: "if I'm choosin' Texas, I'll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico." Both versions carried the same wording under her own accounts.
On X, the statement tagged Langley under the handle @ellalangleymsic. The post paired a music choice with a political choice, placing Langley above Musgraves and Paxton above Talarico. Neither Langley nor Paxton took part in the exchange directly, with no posts from either in the thread documented by Billboard.
Musgraves posted her response on X on Oct. 12, the same date as Noem's criticism. "I don't think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it," she wrote to Noem. The reply was brief. It required no additional comment for readers who knew the memoir story.
In her 2024 memoir No Going Back, Noem recounted shooting and killing her 14-month-old dog Cricket. That written account is the context for Musgraves' wording. Musgraves did not explain the reference further or add any follow-up message in the exchange.
Musgraves is described by the Houston Chronicle as a Texas country music star. Talarico's concert visit began as a simple thank-you note after the Dallas show. Noem's intervention turned it into a public back-and-forth between the singer and herself.
What makes this stand out for fans is how compact it was. Three posts told the whole story: a concert thank-you, a two-line dismissal, and a one-line comeback that reached back two years to a memoir.
