Being a famous country music superstar has its downside. Just ask Kane Brown. The 31-year-old is opening up about the negative part of being a successful singer-songwriter, revealing the dark side of becoming a celebrity.
“People are always asking for things,” Brown reveals on The Great Company podcast (via Music Mayhem). “People always want favors. They always want tickets, whatever it is.”
Brown recalls one person, who helped him get into Red Bank High School, reached out to Brown for a big – and expensive – favor.
“[He] had the audacity [to ask for] a car because they helped me. So I bought them a car,” Brown reveals. “Another person was like, ‘I need help getting a house.’ I’ve known [this person] for maybe seven years. So I helped them get a house, and then somebody else needed rent paid, so I helped them pay rent, and then they needed rent paid, so I helped them pay rent.
“And then another person hit me up for rent. So I paid their rent, and then they wanted to tell me I haven’t done anything for them, or I don’t care for my family and stuff like that,” he continues. “And I’m like, ‘I’ve known you for this amount of time. You are still a stranger to me. It’s like I’ve known people that work for me longer than I’ve known you.'”
It’s because of the greedy few that Brown is no longer able to visit home as much as he would like.
“I used to go back for holidays and stuff like that,” Brown says. “And now I feel like it’s just a picture thing. Everybody’s like, ‘Let’s take a picture.’ I’m like, ‘I just want to chill. I just want to come back and see my family,’ but they don’t allow me to do that. My Nana and my aunt and a couple of other people in my family, they come up, but they also see it, so they’re like, ‘We don’t blame you for not coming back.’ So I’m like, ‘Okay. At least y’all see that.’”
It’s an unfortunate by-product of his fame, especially since his Nana is the person he looks up to the most.
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“I didn’t have any superheroes,” Brown says. Indeed his childhood was far from idyllic, with his mother at one time struggling with homelessness, and his father incarcerated.
“I had one. My Nana is a superhero to me, in my eyes,” he adds. “I’d say my Pop was definitely when I was a kid. And then once I grew up, stuff kind of changed.”
Brown has had plenty of career accomplishments, including awards, sold-out tours, hit singles, platinum-selling albums and more. But for him, his biggest accomplishment is much more personal.
“I would say that the big success is because I never really had that family thing,” the father of three says. “I’m still learning as a dad. For me, at first, being a dad was just being there for my kids. I never had that. And now it’s like Kate came in, she had a big family. She has two brothers, her mom and dad. They had a normal Christmas and a full family. I used to have Christmas, and what I remember is I would have Christmas, and then I would go to my room and play with what I had in my room by myself.”
Find all of Brown’s music and upcoming shows at KaneBrownMusic.com.
Photo Credit: Dennis Leupold