Sam Hunt Addresses DUI Arrest + Aftermath With Brutal Honesty in New Song, ‘The Night I Got Locked Up’ [Watch]
Sam Hunt is addressing his 2019 DUI arrest and its ramifications for his marriage in a brutally honest new song, "The Night I Got Locked Up."
Hunt took the stage at Nashville's iconic Ryman Auditorium on Tuesday (March 14) to share the new song in an acoustic performance as part of the annual Country Radio Seminar, a three-day gathering in Nashville that brings together artists, journalists, radio programmers and other country music insiders for a series of panels, interviews and showcase performances that sets the agenda for the rest of the year in country music.
The song addresses Hunt's arrest and his fears that his wife, Hannah Lee Fowler, would leave him in an unvarnished lyric:
"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 / 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," Hunt sings in the searing chorus.
The song is part of a project Hunt has been working on. No release date is set. He previously performed the song at a Stars for Second Harvest benefit show and shared a clip to Instagram:
Nashville police arrested the country superstar in the early morning hours of Nov. 21, 2019, after responding to a report that a vehicle was driving the wrong way down a street in East Nashville. Nashville's WKRN-TV reported that an officer on the scene said Hunt smelled of alcohol, had bloodshot eyes and tried to give his credit card when asked for a driver's license. Hunt's blood alcohol level was .173. The legal limit in Tennessee is .08.
Hunt pleaded guilty in August of 2021 and received a sentence of 11 months and 29 days. All of that time was suspended except 48 hours, which he agreed to serve in the DUI Education Centers.
Hunt and his wife welcomed their first child — a baby girl named Lucy Louise — in June of 2022. The good news came after a turbulent period in which Fowler filed for divorce in February of 2022, charging Hunt with inappropriate marital conduct and adultery. She called off the divorce in May of 2022.