The duo played their final show together at the Minnesota State Fair in September 2022.
Tyler Hubbard says his former Florida Georgia Line bandmate, Brian Kelley, was "adamant" about embarking on a solo career and that's what ultimately broke up the chart-topping group.
During this week's episode of Barstool Sports' Bussin' With the Boys podcast, the "5 Foot 9" crooner was asked why FGL abruptly came to an end in 2022. The group surprised fans at the Minnesota State Fair when they announced they had just witnessed their last show as a country duo back in September 2022.
"For me, it was really unexpected. But BK came to me and said, 'Man, I'm really feeling like I want to do a solo thing. And I'm like, 'Really?' We were just getting out of our first deal. We were kind of in a sweet spot that we had worked for 10 years to get to," Hubbard recalled. "I'm like, 'Why don't we ride this thing out for like five more years, 10 more years, and then we can do the solo thing or whatever.' But again, like, I wanted to support him. He was adamant, like, 'Nah, now's my time. I really need to do this for myself.' And I'm like, 'Well, hey, whatever you need to do, bro. Like, what do you want from me?' He's like, 'I just want support.'"
Hubbard said he offered exactly that in hopes they'd reunite somewhere down the road.
"Like, we've had an incredible ride. This is where it's going to go. Like, let's do it and crush it, and you never know. Maybe it'll bring us back together and we can have a reunion tour or whatever," Hubbard continued. "But he definitely initiated the whole thing from the beginning and it kind of -- when I say caught me off guard, it wasn't like we had never mentioned it before -- it was just one of those things where I didn't think it was going to happen then, you know what I mean?"
It was back in January 2023 when Hubbard told ET that the breakup came "sort of as a surprise" to him.
"This was a career shift, and a big transition for me -- going from being in a duo, Florida Georgia Line, to now stepping into this new season of being a solo artist," Hubbard told ET at the time. "And what that looks like and feels like, it's been really exciting. But it was definitely unexpected and something that BK came to me and wanted to do. And it took me a minute to kind of process that. And I thought, 'Well, I'll just be a songwriter, and I won't do the artist thing.'"
Hubbard didn't last long on the sidelines, though, releasing his first solo self-titled album not long after. Prior to embarking on a solo career, there was constant speculation that FGL -- behind hits like the 2012 banger "Cruise" and 2016 ballad "H.O.L.Y." -- was going to break up, prompting the duo to promise time and again that that was not going to happen -- until it did.
Fast-forward to today, and fans are speculating that one particular lyric in Kelley's new country track, "Kiss My Boots," is a dig aimed at Hubbard. In the song, Kelley croons, "I'm crankin' Hank, drinkin' Jack, airin' out the past / Want the world to know that you did me wrong / I don't know how you act sweet, after how you did me / Here's a middle finger to you through a song."
Then, in the music video, Kelley's seen hunting a snake in the grass. And when the video ends with Kelley cutting an apple with a knife, he's wearing a belt buckle that reads "Florida," the state Kelley's repped as the one half of the-once popular group. Hubbard reps Georgia.
More recently, the Florida Georgia Line-themed bar, FGL House, in Nashville closed on Monday, per The Tennessean. The closure will now pave the way for country superstar Lainey Wilson to open her own joint, and the three-story, 27,000-square-foot venue will be dubbed Lainey Wilson's Bell Bottoms Up.
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