Sam Hunt is opening up like never before with a new song surrounding his 2019 DUI and the impact it had on his marriage.
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The singer-songwriter officially released the new song, “Locked Up,” on Friday which he has selectively played at shows and showcases for the last year. Directly addressing the night he was arrested in November 2019 for driving under the influence and violating open container law in Nashville, the song is a deeply personal for Hunt, yet one he feels ready to share.
"The night I got locked up / Everything went wrong / The night I got messed up / I should've just stayed home / Picked up my phone / What can I say / Well, I thought that you'd walk away,” Hunt sings in the chorus, which he also performed at Stars for Second Harvest Benefit Show. “But you stood by your man / Like Tammy Wynette / Did everything / You could've just quit / No, but you showed me love / Kept going when the going got tough / The night I got locked up.”
The song arrives five years after Hunt’s brief jail sentence and isn’t the first time he’s acknowledged the incident. He addressed his arrest days after, apologizing to fans for making "a poor and selfish decision."
"Thursday night I decided to drive myself home after drinking at a friend's show in downtown Nashville," Hunt said on X at the time. "It was a poor and selfish decision and I apologize to everyone who was unknowingly put at risk and let down by it."
The arrest not only caused friction in Sam’s career, but was also followed by turbulence in his marriage to Hannah Lee Fowler when she filed for divorce following the incident. At the time, divorce documents submitted by Fowler claimed that Hunt was "guilty of inappropriate marital conduct.”
Fowler withdrew her initial petition and then refiled it in a different county in Tennessee. At the time, she asked for "transitional alimony, rehabilitative alimony, and alimony in future,” and requested primary custody of their unborn child as well as child support. In May 2022, Fowler, who was pregnant with the couple’s first child, asked the court to dismiss their divorce case.
In addition to releasing the song, Hunt also revealed its accompanying music video which features himself and Hannah in a reimagined scene of the infamous 1968 Johnny Cash performance at Folsom State Prison. Watch it below.
The song is the title track of Hunt’s forthcoming EP, Locked Up, arriving April 5.