Elle King Sparks Backlash After Saying She's ‘F--king Hammered’ at Opry

Elle King’s drunken performance at the Grand Ole Opry on Friday, January 19, is fueling outrage from country music fans.

According to social media footage from the event, King, 34, slurred her words and shouted “f—k” multiple times during her set, which was part of the venue’s tribute to Dolly Parton in honor of her 78th birthday, and openly declared she was inebriated.

“You ain’t getting your money back,” King quipped after a heckler yelled at her. “I’ll tell you one thing more: ‘Hi, my name is Elle King [and] I’m f—king hammered.’”

Fans in attendance were immediately shocked, calling out King for shouting obscenities during the family-friendly “Opry Goes Dolly” show at Nashville’s The Ryman. (Ashley Monroe, Tigirlily Gold and Dailey & Vincent were also part of the lineup.)

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“Elle King ruined the night with her horrible, drunk, and profane performance. Dolly Parton would’ve been mortified,” one social media user wrote via X on Saturday, January 20. “For our first time at The Opry, it was a shame we all had to witness that.”

Another wrote via TikTok: “Elle King disrespected the Ryman and Dolly Parton.”

The Opry then issued an apology on King’s behalf. “We deeply regret and apologize for the language that was used during last night’s second Opry performance,” a note on the iconic venue’s official X page read.

King has not publicly addressed the social media outrage. Us Weekly has reached out for comment.

King has been open about struggling with substance abuse issues but has maintained that she can control her drinking.

“I really like to drink and sing. I don’t want to get as drunk as I used to,” King told the San Diego Union-Tribune in February 2022. “It’s easier for me to say: ‘Yeah, I want to drink and party and [then] go on stage.’ I get nervous before I go on stage, [so] I have couple of drinks [first]. Drinking makes me less nervous about hitting the notes when I sing. If I don’t make them, it won’t sting as much.”

King rose to fame in 2012 with the release of her self-titled EP. She has since released three studio albums and has been nominated for four Grammy Awards. Her most well-known single, “Ex’s & Oh’s,” dropped in 2015, earning two of her four Grammy nods. King’s most recent album, Come Get Your Wife, came out in 2023 and marked her foray into country music.

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“If anybody was wondering, ‘Why would Elle King make a country record?’ Well, I said, ‘OK, I’ll tell you. Just start with the first song,’” she told Country Now in March 2023. “So that’s why I wrote [the song] ‘Ohio,’ because I’m sharing where I come from, what I love about country music and it’s also my love letter.”

She added at the time, “I’ve been hearing other artists say, ‘Country music changed my life,’ and like, country music changed me. What happened when I started singing in these country arenas or small clubs or singing for country radio is [that] I felt comfortable. And that’s something that I’ve never felt [before]. So when I went into the record-making process, my walls are just already down.”

Elle is the daughter of actor Rob Schneider and model London King.

“It’s sweet now because you don’t want to be the kid of a famous person and I’m just so glad at this point in my life I get [people saying,] ‘You’re Elle King’s dad?’” Schneider, 60, previously told Us Weekly in May 2018. “I’m just really happy for her that she’s really getting to a good place creatively that she’s just thrilled about.”

Elle shares son Lucky, 2, with Dan Tooker.