Ashley McBryde Gets Candid About the Pressure to Change Her Look

Ashley McBryde has never exactly been interested in blending into the crowd.  

The country star recently opened up about the pressure she faced early in her career to change her appearance — from her naturally curly hair to her tattoos and even the way she dressed.  

Looking back, McBryde made it clear that she wasn't willing to completely reshape herself just to fit someone else's idea of what a country artist should look like.  

During an appearance on Rolling Stone's Nashville Now on Sept. 30, McBryde recalled some of the advice she received when she was first emerging on the country music scene.  

One suggestion was particularly straightforward: Why not go blonde?  

McBryde remembered being told that her curly hair wasn't necessarily the look people wanted and being asked how she felt about becoming blonde. But that wasn't the only part of her appearance that reportedly drew attention.  

The singer said she was also encouraged to stop getting tattoos. “I’m not tall like the other options in country music. I’m not blonde. I’m covered in tattoos. Not as many then as there are now, and that’s how I met that advice. When they were like, ‘Stop getting tattoos.’ I was like, ‘You stop getting tattoos,’” McBryde shared.  

The advice didn't stop with her hair and tattoos. McBryde said she was also asked how she felt about wearing fringe and putting her pants inside her boots.  

She questioned whether there was actually a reason for the fashion choices, joking that she had tried the look but wasn't convinced it worked for her. McBryde also explained that when something makes her uncomfortable, she has a way of turning that discomfort back around on the person giving the advice. “I have a gift for, if something makes me that uncomfortable, it’s now your problem. You will be as uncomfortable as I am. And that’s how I met that advice.”  

This isn't the first time McBryde has discussed the pressure she felt early in her career.  

In a previous interview with the Recording Academy, she recalled being told to change aspects of her appearance, including her weight and hair.  

She described learning that she needed to be more unapologetically herself, while acknowledging that navigating the music business sometimes meant making compromises.  Rather than treating her differences as something that needs to be fixed, she has increasingly embraced them as part of her identity as an artist.  

The Arkansas native just released her fifth studio album, Wild, in May 2026. The project follows 2023's The Devil I Know and represents another deeply personal chapter in her music.  

In discussing Wild, McBryde shared that the album is titled as such because it embodies “the fear, the chaos, the hard truths, and the little kid in me who always kept dreaming big.”