Nearly eight years ago, Jason Aldean was on stage performing at the Route 91 Harvest Festival in Las Vegas when the largest mass shooting in United States history broke out. Now, the country music star is opening up about the tragic incident.
In the middle of Aldean’s performance, a gunman opened fire into the crowd from a nearby hotel, leading to by far the most casualties of any mass shooting in recorded history.
Aldean has not spoken much about the tragic incident, but he recently opened up a bit during a recent interview, admitting that a busy schedule left him unable to fully process the tragedy. Months later, he explains, it finally hit home.
Deadliest Shooting in History
On Oct. 1, 2017, Aldean was performing as one of the headliners at the Route 91 Harvest Festival on the Las Vegas Strip when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd from his 32nd-floor suite in the nearby Mandalay Bay hotel.
Paddock, the lone gunman, fired more than 1,000 rounds into the crowd, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413 others with bullets and shrapnel. The ensuing panic caused by the shooting brought the total number of injuries to around 867.
It was the deadliest mass shooting by a lone gunman in American history.
Aldean Opens Up About the Tragic Incident
Though the incident happened nearly eight years ago, Aldean had not spoken very candidly about it until a recent appearance on the “Armchair Expert” podcast with host Dax Shepard.
“It was a festival like we’ve done a million times,” Aldean recalled. “It was just obviously something that we weren’t prepared for.”
Aldean explained that due to a busy schedule immediately following the incident, he was distracted and didn’t have much time and space to process his emotions and thoughts. But when his wife gave birth to their first child together two months after the shooting, that gave him the space to finally process it all.
At that point, Aldean admits he “kind of had a breakdown” one day.
“All of a sudden at home, we kind of had something else to focus on versus watching that on the news every day,” Aldean said. “I think for me, you know, I kind of had a breakdown in my house one day. It was after my son was born and just all that heaviness of everything, just getting laid on you.”
Aldean struggled thinking about what happened and what could have happened.
“I ended up having a moment at my house where I kind of broke down thinking about just all the people that I could have lost, all the people that we did lose as far as fans, but my inner circle of people and my wife was there eight months pregnant with my son and all these things,” he said.
Aldean Didn’t Go to Therapy Himself
Despite the emotional toll the incident took on him and the survivor’s guilt he dealt with, Aldean said that he actually never attended therapy himself, relying on his friends and family instead.
“I guess [I’m] too Southern,” he said of his decision not to attend therapy. “Here’s the ironic thing. We funded a ton of therapy for all the crews and everybody else.
“My therapy was me, my wife, my band, all of us that were kind of there. We all talked about it amongst each other.”
