Blake Shelton is not apologizing for his latest single, “Minimum Wage” — which some called “tone deaf” — because he thinks those people are just looking to “pick a fight.”
“I just feel like these days, there are people out there who don’t want to know the truth,” he told CMT. “They just want to hear what they want to hear, and they want to pick a fight.”
“No matter what your intention is, no matter what the truth is, they want it to be something that they can be upset about so that they can get on social media and try to grab a headline.”
Shelton, 44, received backlash for a line in the song that says, “Girl, your love can make a man feel rich on minimum wage.”
After his debut of the single on NBC’s New Year’s Eve show, one person tweeted, “The irony of listening to a millionaire Blake Shelton singing about ‘love on minimum wage’ at the end of 2020 might be lost on its target audience.”
Shelton told CMT that upon hearing the criticism, he first thought, “Wow, I guess I just I’ve missed something here.”
“Whatever this backlash is is just four or five people that probably don’t know anything about country music,” he said.
The “Voice” coach said “Minimum Wage” is a “love song” about “how if times are tight and you ain’t got much money — as long as you have love and you’re happy — at the end of the day, that’s all any of us can really hope for.”
“You got it if you got that,” he said. “That’s all that matters. And if that’s offensive to you, then we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”
Shelton added, “I believe this song is a great message and I’m proud of it.”