It’s Hard To Believe That Chris Stapleton Was Singing Backup For Billy Ray Cyrus In 2007

Ah, The View…  quite possibly the dumbest show on television. Honestly, it’s had to believe that the show has been running for nearly 30 years, and while I don’t recall watching it much at all back in the ’90s, I’m going to have to assume that it wasn’t as insufferable as it is today. Joy Behar, Sunny Hostin, Whoopi Goldberg… what an absolute trio of intellectual ineptitude. I’m convinced people just hate watch it.

Of course, there is never a shortage of viral moments from The View, and it seems like most of them are because people are just utterly dumbfounded that something so stupid could be said on national TV. Like when Joy Behar was mad that the Russian invasion of Ukraine would probably throw a wrench in her plans to travel to Europe. After all, she had been waiting 4 years to go…

Or in a more recent brilliant sound bite where Sunny Hostin compared Hamas terrorists, who savagely murdered over 1,300 people, wounded many more, assaulted and tortured others, and provoked a response from Israel that has resulted in the loss of even more innocent Palestinian lives, to… wait for it… the Proud Boys.

Or when Sunny Hostin said that Brittany Mahomes was “supporting a racist” by liking a Trump Instagram post, and how that was deeply problematic because she has bi-racial kids:

Honestly, we could keep going for days and days with their TDS nonsense, but we’re not gonna get into all that. We could write 10,000 words on how ridiculous The View is, but instead, we’re gonna take it back to 2007.

Chris Leak and Tim Tebow were leading the Florida Gators a National Championship, cargo shorts were still in full swing, and it was every little girl’s dream to be Hannah Montana when they grew up. Of course, the Cyrus family were the face of children’s TV programming, as Miley and Billy Ray were the stars of the show.

So, it was no wonder that Billy Ray was given a shot to revive his one hit wonder country music career off of “Achy Breaky Heart,” as he was invited to play during a 2007 segment of The View. He played his song “Ready, Set, Don’t Go,” a song about Miley growing up off and chasing her dreams, from his 2007 Home At Last album (album was meh). However, perhaps the wildest part about the segment, was the man singing backup vocals… is Chris Stapleton.

At the time, he was only writing songs and trying to kickstart his singing career as the frontman of The Steeldrivers, but watching this now, we’re all kind of waiting for Chris to let it rip and sing him under the table.

Of course, Chris did his job and didn’t show him up… but it’s still hard to wrap my head around the fact that Chris Stapleton was singing backup for Billy Ray Cyrus back then. It’s even harder to wrap my head around the fact that Chris didn’t blow up for another EIGHT YEARS. It took people 8 more years, and a performance with boy band star Justin Timberlake, for people to get on board the Chris Stapleton train. Granted, once the floodgates opened, Chris shot to the top of the charts and never looked back, but still, the man paid some DUES. They say Nashville is a 10 year town, but for Chris, it was more like 20… he moved to Music City in the late ’90s and was writing songs almost immediately after.

But now, nearly 20 years after that performance on The View, Stapleton is the best singer/songwriter in mainstream country, everybody in music wants to collaborate with him, he laid down one of the best Super Bowl national anthem performances in recorded history, and he’s got more Grammys, CMAs, ACMS and other awards than he probably ever thought possible while he was backing up Billy Ray Cyrus on The View.

I’d say the times have changed… although, Billy Ray is pulling Liz Hurley these days, so… he wins.

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