Jason Aldean Says He’s ‘Too Southern’ For Therapy, Talks Ordeal

Country superstar Jason Aldean is opening up about the toll the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting took on him, revealing that he suffered a breakdown in the months that followed the horrific attack.

The 48-year-old singer was on stage in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017, when a gunman opened fire on the crowd, killing 60 people and injuring more than 800 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 on Monday’s episode of the “Armchair Expert” podcast. “It was just obviously something that we weren’t prepared for.”

In the immediate aftermath, Aldean barely had a moment to breathe. He rushed home to his family, made an emotional appearance on “Saturday Night Live” to honor the victims, and returned to Las Vegas to meet 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 shared. “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.” Reflecting on visiting the injured, Aldean admitted, “That was tough. People hadn’t recovered from their wounds yet.”

Despite the emotional weight, Aldean pressed forward with his tour before taking a break to focus on family life when his wife, Brittany, gave birth to their son, Memphis, two months later. It was at home, surrounded by loved ones, that he finally let the emotions catch up with him. “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 country star said he was haunted by “what if” scenarios. “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 none of his crew members were physically harmed, Aldean revealed just how close they came to tragedy as one of his bassists’ instruments stopped a bullet.

Even with the relief that his inner circle was spared, Aldean admits those feelings were complicated. “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 if he sought professional counseling, Aldean confessed he hadn’t. “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 told host Dax Shepard.

Looking back, Aldean says the tragedy permanently bonded him with the city of 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 even hinted at the idea of returning under different circumstances. “I think that’s probably in our future to hit Vegas, do some residencies,” the country artist 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 seventh anniversary of the shooting last year, Aldean marked the day with a heartfelt message, writing, “7 years later and this day never gets easier. Sending love out to everybody in the Route 91 family today.”