When you come to Montana, you’d better know one thing. Respect for the land isn’t a suggestion, it’s a way of life.
Shaboozey might be riding high off the success of Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going, but this week, he found himself in a very different kind of spotlight after a Montana ranch owner called him out for staging a photo shoot on private land without permission. That viral post of him under the Big Sky, cigarette in hand, posed like an outlaw in a denim jacket? Turns out it was snapped on someone else’s property. And they are not thrilled about it.
Lexie Kottwitz, co-owner of the land in question, didn’t just drop a comment. She wrote a full-blown open letter that lit up social media. In it, she laid out exactly why this wasn’t just a harmless backdrop choice. It was trespassing, plain and simple. Not metaphorically, not socially, but legally.
“This land is not open to the public,” she wrote. “A phone call or door knock would have been the right thing to do.”
She’s not wrong. In Montana, land is sacred. Generations have worked, fought, and bled for it. It’s not just a pretty place to pose for your next album drop. It’s someone’s livelihood, someone’s heritage, and someone’s responsibility to protect. When you step onto that land without permission, especially for publicity, you’re not just disrespecting a property line. You’re stomping all over something that took years to build.
Another co-owner echoed the frustration, saying they actually liked Shaboozey’s music and probably would’ve welcomed him had he just asked. But instead, he showed up uninvited, lit up a smoke near a haystack, and used their land for likes. That cigarette alone could’ve turned into a disaster. Hay burns fast, and when it goes up, so does a family’s winter feed, their income, and months of hard work.
What makes it worse is the silence. As of now, Shaboozey hasn’t responded publicly, and according to Lexie, no one from his camp has reached out. For a guy who just announced his first headlining tour, this isn’t the kind of story you want trailing behind the merch truck.
Of course, the online conversation got messy fast. Some tried to flip the script, pointing out Montana’s history of settler colonialism and saying the land isn’t exactly innocent either. But that misses the point. Respect isn’t a one-way street. If you’re a guest, whether you’re a tourist, an artist, or just passing through, you follow the damn rules.
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This isn’t about celebrity versus rancher, or city slickers versus locals. It’s about the basic decency of asking before you take. You don’t walk into someone’s house, grab a beer from the fridge, and snap a selfie on their porch. So why should land be any different?
Shaboozey owes these folks more than a deleted photo. He owes them an apology. A real one. Not the kind crafted by a publicist, but one that says, “I messed up, and I’ll do better.”
Because if you want to sing about dusty roads and wild horses, you damn well better understand what those things mean to the people who live it every day.
And in Montana, that starts with asking first.
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