ON DECEMBER 19, 2004, the Tennessean broke a story which made waves in the world of country music. The paper was contacted by Stephanie Hoffpauir, a member of the Chely Wright fan club, who claimed she had participated in a scheme to boost Wright’s single, “Bumper of My SUV,” to the top of the country charts. Hoffpauir, a 31 year-old music teacher from Lafayette, Louisiana, was, she claimed, compelled by a guilty conscience to expose a publicity campaign which she deemed “unethical.”
With Hoffpauir’s help the Tennessean found that several members of Wright’s official fan club had been posing as either military or the families of military in an attempt to promote the single “Bumper of My SUV.” Worse, these actions were undertaken at the behest of the fan club’s leadership. As the Tennessean reported, “It was all part of an organized campaign by leaders of the fan club who encouraged the team to do such things as ‘tell ’em your husband is a marine–whatever it takes.”’
The Tennessean story has all of the gory details, but at the end of the day, Wright fired the head of her fan club (a man she had previously called her “best friend”) and claimed no prior knowledge of the shenanigans being carried out on her behalf.
CHELY WRIGHT is not a household name but she has had some measure of success, most notably being named Top New Female Vocalist by the Academy of Country Music in 1995. Yet with the exception of the hit title track to her fourth album, Single White Female, Wright has struggled to establish herself as an elite performer. In November of last year, she set out on a media blitz, appearing on such shows as The O’Reilly Factor and Deborah Norville Tonight to promote “Bumper of My SUV.” The single seemed to have all the ingredients of hit: It’s the story of how someone gave her the finger for daring to have a Marine Corps bumper sticker. The full story is related in Wright’s own words on her website:
Wright went to great lengths to assure her fans that “I am in no way trying to exploit the situation in the Middle East by ‘writing a country song about it’ and ‘cashing in.’ I am simply keeping my promise to about 4,000 young men and women who personally asked a favor of me . . . and I humbly said yes.” Before the Tennessean‘s exposé there was little reason to doubt Wright’s motives, but now there are some questions, the biggest of which is: Was Wright genuinely moved to stand up for the troops in harm’s way, or was the entire conceit of “Bumper of My SUV”–like the song’s bogus marketing–just a calculated ploy?
I INTERVIEWED Chely Wright last October, before the controversy erupted. Excerpts from the interview follow:
Wright on recording “Bumper of My SUV”: “I don’t have that fear of like, people are going to think oh she’s cashing in, she’s exploiting a situation. All I have to do is simply note the date of creation of the song, which it was 16 months ago, you know, had I wanted to exploit it, I would’ve gone right in, recorded it, put it on the record that was coming out. I didn’t do that, I simply did it, because I had a bunch of guys and gals come up and say please, please promise you’ll record that.”
On the guys and gals: “One of the things that one of the guys came up, he was in the Air Force, I said tell me what about that song makes you say that I need to go record it. He said because what you’re saying in there is that we’re not all a bunch of trigger-happy warmongers and that you appreciate the fact that you can flip somebody off and talk badly about our president because we’re over here doing our jobs. He said believe it or not, there’s some of us over here that are Democrats, and believe it or not there’s some of us over here that are doing our jobs and we’re not sure if we should be here or not, but we’re here, and we’re doing our jobs.”
On Iraq and the Muslim World: “I don’t know if they’re going to adopt democracy the way that we have it here. I doubt it. To be perfectly honest, I doubt that the Muslim world wants the same kind of freedoms and culture that we have, but they should certainly be able to practice the religion of their belief and have running water and electricity and be able to ask questions of their governments without being beheaded at the cross-sabers in Baghdad.”
On where she gets her news: “I get my news from BBC, MSNBC, CNN, FOX News, NPR, I don’t, uh, certainly Fox is slanted right. I’m not a Republican. CNN is slanted a bit left, although not far left, NPR is slanted way left. I get all the information that I can from every source that I can . . . so no, I’m not a big fan of Fox News. I’m not opposed to it. I think it’s information, it’s an opinion.”
Did she support the president and the war prior to the war and did she still feel that way: “That’s something I’ve never, ever publicly discussed, it’s just something I won’t discuss.”
WHEN I ASKED HER if she was going to vote for Bush or Kerry, Wright responded: “Oh, you know one of the things my government teacher in high school told me is that’s something you never have to say.”
When I pressed her, saying that he opinion would carry a lot of weight with some people, she replied: “Um, you know what, I suggest to anyone who is still undecided, which by the way, honestly, swear to God, I’m still undecided. I have a big problem with the president’s desire to amend the constitution, as far as the marriage between a man and a woman. As far as I’m concerned that’s a hate crime.
Wright also seemed more than a little sympathetic with Dixie Chicks, who famously used their performances to attack President Bush and the war in Iraq:
Michael Goldfarb is a staff assistant at The Weekly Standard.
