Garth Brooks Won't Play Inauguration Due to His Tour Schedule

Garth Brooks is speaking out to clarify why he won’t be performing at Donald Trump‘s presidential inauguration this week and it sounds like his absence is not due to any political reasons.

The 54-year-old country singer told fans in a Facebook Live broadcast that he can’t perform as he will be on tour in Cincinnati.

Garth explained that his friend Steve Wynn, who is organizing the entertainment portion of the inauguration, asked him to perform and he decided to wait and see if he would need to fill up his tour schedule with more shows due to demand. The demand was high, so he had to book more shows.

“We left it up to karma. If Cincinnati goes two weekends instead of one, then of course we are out. Sure enough, Cincinnati did five shows, two weekends and backed us up into there, so we got knocked out of it,” Garth said.

Click inside to read what else Garth Brooks said on the subject…

“I’ll tell you with this whole presidential thing: We got one going out. Pray for him and his family. And for the president going in, pray for him and his family to guide this nation. Let’s stay together,” he added. “Love, unity — that’s what it’s all about.”

“In the immortal words of of Martin Luther King, the most durable power that we’ve known is love. It will always be that way,” he continued, noting that it was Martin Luther King Jr. Day when he taped the video.

“We can’t thank the Obamas enough for serving this country,” he said. “And may God hold Trump’s hand in the decisions that he makes in this country’s name as well.”

Hear Garth talk about the inauguration starting at the 4:30 mark in the video.