Music

Tim McGraw, Faith Hill Stan Mickey Guyton’s Grammy Performance

Tim McGraw and Faith Hill were so taken with Mickey Guyton‘s performance at the 2021 Grammys on Sunday night (March 14) that they made a rookie mistake: They forgot to hit record while trying to capture footage of the event.

Guyton performed “Black Like Me” during her time on the telecast, one of the songs of her 2020 Bridges EP. The singer wrote “Black Like Me” as a sort of therapy, she explained at the time, in response to the inequity and setbacks she has faced both as a person and a performer in the country industry because of her skin color. She released the song in 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter movement, as a galvanized Civil Rights movement emerged in response to the May 2020 death of George Floyd and other instances of Black people dying at the hands of white police officers.

Watching the Grammy Awards from home, the country superstar couple were particularly enthralled by Guyton’s performance, and Hill tried to capture video on her phone. But as Guyton wrapped up the final bars of her song, Hill realized that she’d forgotten to hit record, failing to grab video of Guyton onstage until the very end.

“Aw, s–t, I missed it!” Hill says in a short snippet of video, showing Guyton finishing her song and applause breaking out  from the crowd.

“Did you?” McGraw responds in the background.

“Forgive me for the curse word,” Hill wrote on Instagram, along with the video of her failed attempt to record Guyton’s performance. She then went on to explain why she was so captivated by the special moment, and the rise of Guyton’s career as a whole.

“I’ll be the first to admit that I have a lot of work to do in most areas of my life,” Hill continues. “Let’s get real. Three chords and the truth … right? That’s how country music is described by country music artists and those that love and listen to country music. Well, this is about as true as it gets.”

For his part, McGraw was equally moved by the performance and the message behind Guyton’s song, reposting his wife’s video and caption on his own Instagram page.

The country star couple have been vocal about social activism issues in the past. Both McGraw and Hill vocalized their support for what they describe as “common sense” gun control back in 2017, in the wake of that year’s Route 91 Harvest Festival mass shooting. The next year, they also joined former First Lady Michelle Obama’s campaign to promote voter registration.

More recently, Hill has spoken out about another issue related to the 2020 push towards racial equality: A Mississippi native, she was among those pressing the state to change its official flag, which features the Confederate flag emblem. That push ultimately made its way into state legislature, and the flag was ultimately changed to feature a white magnolia blossom and the phrase, “In God We Trust.”

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