Oliver Anthony Was Severely Depressed & Isolated Ahead Of “Scornful Woman” – “I Didn’t Do Thanksgiving Or Christmas Last Year”

Oliver Anthony was in the trenches after he and his wife divorced, inspiring the song “Scornful Woman.”

Since the release of his last single, “Scornful Woman,”  Oliver Anthony has received a lot of positive feedback for the song detailing a painstaking divorce. While it’s not as big as his viral breakout single “Rich Men North of Richmond,” this latest single has the same conviction in the lyrical delivery, and can just feel the pain in his voice with every single note.

Before the release of “Scornful Woman,” the great Joe Rogan raved about the tune, and shortly after its release, he shared with The Joe Rogan Experience listeners that Anthony’s horrific divorce inspired the lyrics.

“He starts making millions of dollars, playing arenas. The wife divorces him. She wants everything. She wants EVERYTHING. She wants more than half. She wants all the money he’s going to be making in the future because she was with him when he was broke. It’s f***** crazy.

He’s just tortured. He wants to die. Wants to die — and writes this song.”

Shortly after Rogan shared this, Oliver Anthony made another appearance on the hit podcast and opened up about many things he experienced over the last year, like his management team dropping him after making a Hilary Clinton comment, how much his first royalty check was from “Rich Men North of Richmond,” and more. He also opened up about how his wife divorcing him put him at one of the lowest points of his life.

And while he doesn’t come out and say it for sure, I think we can read between the lines here:

“We had just gotten done with touring in 2024, well obviously things are what they are, but there were multiple, different negative things happening all at once, and I got in a post where I did my thing, where I sort of spiraled and was isolating myself. I spent a month-and-a-half or two months in that house. I didn’t do Thanksgiving or Christmas last year. Just really didn’t hardly talk to anybody or anything. It was probably time to write a song like that.”

Anthony doesn’t provide many other details about his divorce or updates about the children he shares with his wife, Tiffany Lunsford. However, he did provide some more details about how the song came to be.

Anthony penned the tune with fiddle player Billy Contreras, his manager Draven Riffe, and guitar player Joey Davis. One night, during 2024, when he was in the thick of his dark period, Draven Riffe and Joey Davis came over, and the song was written from a therapeutic place, noting that he just needed to get this feeling off his chest.

“I said, ‘Well, if you’re gonna write a song … it’s gotta be something that you feel, not something that you can just articulate about. It’s gotta be something that’s in there that’s got to come out.’ We sat there for like 10 seconds, and ‘Scornful Woman’ was the word that was used, and it was specific relationships, but also it was a collection of the experiences that we’d all had. We’d all had horrible relationships in the past.”

Within minutes, “Scornful Women” was written.

You can feel the raw emotion as Anthony powerfully delivers the lyrics.

“She can have all the money
And they can keep all the fame
I’d go back to being broke as a joke
If I could just get a break from the pain…”

While there are always two sides to every story, “Scornful Woman” certainly does not paint Tiffany positively; if she ever chooses to share her side of the story, she will have a lot of explaining to do.

Take a listen before you leave.

If you want to watch the entire Joe Rogan episode, check that out too. The episode is filled with great stories from Anthony, including Anthony butting heads with his publishing company for flagging “Scornful Woman” reaction videos. 

It’s a solid episode.

The post Oliver Anthony Was Severely Depressed & Isolated Ahead Of “Scornful Woman” – “I Didn’t Do Thanksgiving Or Christmas Last Year” first appeared on Whiskey Riff.