People Magazine
Not Staying In Her Lane
With a sober mind - and an unlikely Housewives connection - the Nashville star is making a name for herself on her own terms
SIDEBAR Pursuing her passion: “I love getting lost in a song and being able to not worry for a minute,” says Wade.
The last time country singer Morgan Wade tried to count her tattoos, she lost track at 135. Among the ink sketched permanently on her body: the Morton Salt girl, “6/17/17” (the date she got sober) and the words “rock” and “roll”, which sit on her fingers. “They call them job stoppers,” she says of her hand tattoos. “Once I did that, everyone was like, ‘Well, you’re never going to be able to get an office job.’ And I’m like, ‘Good. I don’t want to work an office job.’ It’s not what I’m meant to do.”
Wade never let the naysayers keep her from finding success. Her 2021 debut album, Reckless, featured the breakthrough ACM and CMT-nominated hit “Wilder Days,” and her sophomore record, Psychopath, (out Aug. 25) leans in to the Americana rock that won her fans. Even so, Wade’s well aware that she exists outside the cookie-cutter country mold. “[Country] has absolutely no idea what to do with me,” says Wade, 28. “But that’s a good thing, because you stick out.” With her platform, Wade hopes to make a difference by sharing her ups and downs, including her struggles with alcohol and plans for a preventative double mastectomy. “Stuff has to be talked about,” she says.
Born and raised in the one-stoplight town of Floyd, Va., Wade got her first taste of music at a weekly bluegrass night at the local country store, where she’d camp out on a lawn chair with her grandfather. By 8 years old, Wade was writing songs of her own. (Her mom, Robin, and dad, Jason, divorced when she was young; her mom remarried and has four more kids, ages 5 to 12.) But while she thrived in her craft, Wade, whose first band was made up of musicians she’d found on Craigslist, struggled to find her place as she entered young adulthood. She began drinking in college, and “I was like, ‘Okay, I like how out of my shell I’m getting [with alcohol],’” recalls Wade, who dreamed of becoming a cardiothoracic surgeon at the time. “[Soon drinking] was all I wanted to do.”
Wade’s drinking worsened as she began to seriously pursue music. Gigs at bars meant free bar tabs, and she would often go drink for drink with her male bandmates. She eventually hit rock bottom three years later during her first-ever visit to New York City. “I drank more than I’ve ever drank in my life,” she says. “I remember a hangover that lasted for a couple weeks. I was so depressed, I didn’t think I was going to make it out of that.”
After that night she decided to quit drinking. “I’ve had tough moments even in the last few months where it’s been really hard,” says Wade, who found encouragement from Russell Brand’s self-help book Recovery: Freedom From Our Additions. “It’s been so long that I have to remind myself the reasons why I’m sober. As time goes on you’re like, ‘Well, maybe I’m different now. Maybe I could drink and not be the same person.’ And then it’s like, ‘No, you’ve got to stay away.’” Leaving alcohol behind was a “big defining moment” in her life, she says, and sobriety has improved her relationships and her health. “Everything’s changed for me,” she says. “Obviously I still make mistakes and screw up, but I’m like all right, at last I remember what I did, and I cannot do it again.”
Wade is also prioritizing her health in other ways. In November the singer will undergo a preventative double mastectomy. She made the decision after testing positive for the RAD51D gene, which puts her at a 20 to 40 percent lifetime risk of breast cancer. “I would rather have that peace of mind,” she says of choosing to have the same surgery her mother did. “People are like, ‘Well, what if you never got cancer?’ I was like, ‘Well, I won’t know because I’m going to do the procedure and then not worry about it.’ If you have the opportunity to prevent something, prevent it. That’s the choice I want to make.”
SIDEBAR An Unlikely Friendship: Wade became fast friends with reality star Kyle Richards after Richards heard Wade on the radio and posted her song to Instagram. The singer says Richards has given her helpful pointers on fame and her upcoming mastectomy, as Richards’s mother had breast cancer. “I know that if Kyle vouches for you, you’re a good person,” says Wade.
Through it all Wade is grateful she can lean on loved ones, including pal Kyle Richards, whom Wade befriended after the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star posted an unexpected Instagram Story of herself listening to “Wilder Days.” She values the advice Richards, 54, has shared about living in the spotlight. “She’s extremely smart when it comes to business and how to mentally ignore shit,” says Wade. Though online rumors persist that Wade and Richards (who announced her separation from husband Mauricio Umansky in July) are romantically involved, Wade insists they’re just friends: “The Internet’s a dumb place.” The pair - who poked fun at the dating rumors in the cheeky music video for Wade’s single “Fall in Love With Me,” in which Richards stars as her love interest - are currently working on a documentary that will follow the singer throughout her upcoming health journey.
Wade acknowledges she’s had more eyes on her lately than she’s accustomed to. “With this record, I put a lot of pressure on myself,” she says. “Was the first one just lucky? Did I just get lucky that it turned out great?” Regardless, she’s sticking to the advice she gives her younger siblings: Be yourself, and the rest will take care of itself. “So far, so good,” she says. “It’s worked, me staying true to what I want to do.”
SIDEBAR Leaning On Family: “They’re great, and they all love music,” says Wade. “The youngest needs to know what each [lyric] means.”