Riley Green described a tense moment on stage during one of his concerts in a recent interview with Billboard.
When speaking with the outlet, the 37-year-old country music star recalled the moment a fan threw his cell phone at him while he was performing in Melbourne, Australia.
“Initially, there was probably a moment where I thought about diving into the crowd and I reeled that back a little bit,” he said. “There’s people in the venue that paid good money to come see me play and it seems pretty childish for me to let one person ruin it for everybody.”
The incident led him to get five stitches on his earlobe, but he continued on with the show, noting, “I got to be honest: I looked pretty cool with blood running down my neck singing ‘I Wish Grandpas Never Died.’”
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Green is scheduled to perform at the Rock the Country festival in celebration of the country’s 250th anniversary of independence. The festival is headlined by Kid Rock, an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump.
While some acts, including Carter Faith, Ludacris and Morgan Wade dropped out to avoid creating more division politically, Green was not deterred.
“The simplest way I can put it is if somebody calls me and wants me to come play a festival and financially it makes sense, then I’m probably going to go do it. I don’t ask a lot of questions beyond that,” he told Billboard. “Rock the Country sounds like a fun festival. I don’t see any benefit in me making anything political. I think people go to concerts to try to get away from their everyday problems and enjoy country music. My job is to entertain them.”
The “In Love by Now” singer had his big break when he released his hit single, “There Was This Girl,” and found even greater success after the release of his debut album, “Different ‘Round Here,” in 2019.
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He has since released two more albums and has collaborated with the biggest names in country music including, Luke Combs, Thomas Rhett and Ella Langley. His song with Langley, “You Look Like You Love Me,” boosted his popularity and earned him a CMA Award win.
“I didn’t think it was a hit because I thought talking verses were way too traditional to work, but I thought, ‘Well, it’d be cool to have a song that we could do together on the road,'” he said on “The Zach Sang Show” in September 2025.
He later added: “So I just wrote a second verse for it and we recorded it and you know it I thought it was fun. I thought it was something that kind of stayed in your head a little bit but again just goes to show you I don’t know because I had no idea it would be the big hit that it was.”
Earlier this month, Green announced he would officially be joining “The Voice” as a coach in its upcoming 30th season in an Instagram post featuring him sitting in the iconic judges chair.
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“I guess y’all can start calling me coach… see ya this fall,” he captioned the post.
Fans couldn’t contain their excitement over the announcement, with one writing, “Guess I’ll be watching the voice now,” in the comments section, and another adding, “suddenly i’ll be watching this season of the voice.”