Kenny Chesney Mistakenly Pronounces Cop Dead in Stage Shout Out
It was late Saturday night, early Sunday morning, roughly midnight Central time, and a press release was sent out across the wires from the Kenny Chesney camp. It seemed like a very strange time to send out a press release, but Kenny Chesney’s peeps had a story they wanted to get out to the public, or more specifically, a story they wanted to be out ahead of.
At Kenny’s Saturday night (6/25) concert at Philadelphia’s Lincoln Financial Stadium, he gave a shout out to a 25-year-old local police officer named Christopher Dorman in front of the 48,322 fans in attendance. The officer had been shot seven times the night before in the line of duty for the Folcroft Police Department near Philadelphia, and had required two surgeries. Well wishes poured in for the officer who was being hailed for his bravery, and while in the hospital, Officer Dorman composed a short video on Facebook. “I’d like to thank all of the police, paramedics, and doctors. And hey Kenny, don’t forget me,” the video said.
Chesney caught wind of the video, and gave a shout out to Officer Dorman from the stage right before one of his songs. Unfortunately though, Chesney mistakenly told the Philadelphia crowd that Christopher Dorman had passed away.
Kenny Chesney was trying to pay honor but was given wrong info, said Folcroft Officer Chris Dorman had died. He’s ok pic.twitter.com/SwYlsyNU91
— Cindy Webster (@Cindy610) June 26, 2016
Figuring out the gaffe, the Kenny Chesney publicity machine dispensed a press release late Saturday night that omitted Chesney’s death pronouncement, but included the rest of Kenny’s words for Christopher Dorman, as well as further quotes from Chesney. “I was so caught up in the moment, I think the emotions got the best of me – and I wasn’t as clear as I could’ve been,” the press release said, along with this further explanation …
The crowd, which had begun cheering as they realized what Chesney was talking about, roared when he invoked the policeman’s name. For them, the story was personal – and the fact that Chesney knew – and lifted this moment to honor the police officer prompted an insane response. If the internet blew up at what seemed to be his comment suggesting the officer had passed, he finished the song he was singing, the plaintive “Anything But Mine,” about yearning for a summer love past, and offered, “Christopher Dorman, wherever you are, this is for you…”
But Kenny Chesney did not “suggest” that Officer Dorman had passed away, and that’s not “what seemed” to be what Chesney said, or that Chesney wasn’t “as clear as [he] could’ve been” with his words. Clearly from the video, Kenny Chesney said that Officer Dorman had died.
Everybody makes mistakes, and unfortunately for Kenny, when you’re standing in front of 48,322 people and the local press is in attendance in full force, those mistakes get dramatically amplified. Chesney brought up Officer Dorman because he heard about the story and wanted to give him some attention and send him some love, which is noble and worthy of praise. And in the frenetic atmosphere of putting on a concert, it’s understandable that details could get mixed up for Chesney.
But what took the gaffe from an innocent mistake to a simmering PR nightmare for the Chesney camp is their attempt to act like people misheard or misinterpreted Kenny Chesney’s words. Even the verbiage from the press release saying “if the internet blew up” seemed calculated and premeditated. At the time the press release was disseminated, only one or two people had mentioned the gaffe on Twitter and it was far from a viral phenomenon. Even those people pointing out the mistake were still giving Chesney credit for acknowledging Officer Dorman in the first place. Meanwhile the press release tried to gloss over Kenny’s mistake, yet still exploit the shout out to Officer Dorman as a promotional opportunity.
To the credit of Kenny Chesney, on Sunday he personally called Christopher Dorman to apologize for the mistake and wished him the best, and offered to take Officer Dorman out for a football game and beers in the future. And of course, the Associated Press picked up that story as well, and a new round of publicity was launched around the incident.
It has to be assumed that Kenny Chesney’s heart was in the right place the whole time. It’s the way modern music publicity attempts to exploit these bleeding heart stories for personal gain that makes all the shout outs and charity appearances seem to be more about the marketing than truly trying to make a difference. Right now in popular American music, the music itself many times seems secondary to the celebrity worship that surrounds stars. Bad music is regularly justified by superfans because of the good deeds the artist participates in, or the social stances they take. Though Chesney’s mistake might have been innocent and his intentions pure, the marketing behind it felt anything but.
A similar incident and backlash occurred in April 2014 when Florida Georgia Line made mention of a mass killing in Calgary at one of their concerts. Five people had been stabbed to death two days prior to the Florida Georgia Line concert, and when mentioning it, Tyler Hubbard stumbled over his words, and caused local outrage in Alberta. ““We know that this city is in mourning, we heard about a shooting… or a murder… that happened in the city a couple weeks ago… or a couple days ago here in Calgary,” Hubbard said, causing one local reporter named Mike Bell to post a rant about the flippant attitude the duo took towards the incident.
Stadium-level performers are regularly asked to make shout outs from the stage by producers, managers, and promoters about incidents they’re barely aware of, if at all, in an attempt to ingratiate performers to the concertgoers and show a human side. But if their heart isn’t in it or the facts aren’t together, these moments often feel like bait, or plastic, and lends to the theory that all fans are getting is a facade, and the primary focus for making such homages is marketing.
June 26, 2016 @ 6:46 pm
I’m no Chesney fan but he deserves to be cut some slack here. I have no doubts it was an honest mistake. But he should have owned up to immediately. That’s the thing with everyone having a camera in their pocket these days – it makes a nightmare for publicists trying to go the route of traditional damage control.
June 26, 2016 @ 6:56 pm
I think you have to assume Kenny Chesney’s heart was in the right place here and he made an honest mistake. But whomever decided to insinuate that people had simply misheard Kenny, or that he “wasn’t clear” with his words is pretty deceptive. It’s 2016 and you have to know someone in the crowd is rolling on the moment.
June 26, 2016 @ 9:17 pm
I really think you’re reaching for this story. It’s a non-issue, and people will undoubtly read just the headline and not realize that he made a simple mistake. There’s no reason for this article other than to bring unwarranted negativity to Chesney. Yes they should have owned up to the mistake 100%, but as long as Chesney had good intentions and even called the guy, this story doesn’t need to be publicized.
Not to take away from the site because I love it, but I’d have a pretty hard time believing you would write this article if it had happened to someone like Jason Isbell.
June 26, 2016 @ 10:26 pm
“people will undoubtly read just the headline and not realize that he made a simple mistake. “
I can’t be responsible for lazy readers. I assume an intelligent audience. I don’t expect everyone to read all the articles here, but I do expect they read them before they come to any conclusions about the nature of the content. Which seems only fair.
“There’s no reason for this article other than to bring unwarranted negativity to Chesney.”
I respectfully disagree. I think out of my way to be fair to Chesney, and to assume he had the best intentions and made an honest mistake.
“Yes they should have owned up to the mistake 100%, but as long as Chesney had good intentions and even called the guy, this story doesn’t need to be publicized.”
See, that’s the key to this whole story. They WANT there to be stories about this. Kenny Chesney’s camp wants outlets talking about this incident. Otherwise, why would you release a press release about it, and why then would you reach out to the Associated Press, who you know is going to disseminate the story to dozens, maybe hundreds of other outlets when all is said and done? The publicists for Kenny Chesney gamed the system perfectly with this. They got pub for Chesney for giving a shout out to the fallen officer, then they got even more pub when he called him up and invited him to a football game. This was the biggest story in Philadelphia today, and if it’s such a non-story, why are there dozens of other periodicals running it? Because people want to read about it, and it was disseminated by The Associated Press. All I did was offer some context about how the original press release came about, and broach what I believe is a very important discussion on the nature of publicity surrounding such events.
“I’d have a pretty hard time believing you would write this article if it had happened to someone like Jason Isbell.”
Incorrect. I write negative articles about independent country artists all the time. Ask Margo Price who I openly questioned her getting booked on SNL. As for Jason Isbell, I called him out for overreacting to Dierk’s Bentley’s alleged theft of “In A Razor Town.”
https://savingcountrymusic.com/this-whole-dierks-bentley-ripping-of-jason-isbell-thing/
Or how about the time I reported on Justin Townes Earle tearing up a dressing room:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/belligerent-justin-townes-earle-arrested-in-indianapolis/
Or how about in January when Evan Felker of the Turnpike Troubadours turned in numerous drunken performances. Did I spare him the poison pen just because I like their music? No. It was a legitimate story that somebody had to write:
https://savingcountrymusic.com/fans-speak-up-after-numerous-drunken-performances-by-turnpike-troubadours-evan-felker/
So yes, I would have written the same story if it was Jason Isbell, except Jason Isbell’s publicist probably wouldn’t have tried to cover it up, and Isbell probably wouldn’t be pandering to an audience by trying to piggy back of a current event.
June 27, 2016 @ 9:37 am
The difference with Isbell, Justin Townes Earle and Felker is that they all deserved to have to not-so-positive press written about them. Isbell was being a d*ck and Felker was too drunk to play shows, whereas Chesney made a simple mistake. Big difference there.
And if the story was really about the press release, headline it that way. The headline you wrote seems to be less about the PR handling (which I guess could be a reasonable story) and more about a human making a human mistake.
June 27, 2016 @ 12:36 pm
I understand what you’re getting at Tom. Writing headlines is hard because you have a very limited amount of space, and you need to encapsulate what the story is about. But again I go back to the fact that Chesney’s peeps reached out to the Associated Press specifically to release this story to the public. At this point, there may be over 100 headlines out there basically saying the same thing this one does, because that’s the way the Chesney camp wants it. I decided to offer a bit more context on the matter.
June 27, 2016 @ 2:46 pm
Gotcha. Fair enough.
June 26, 2016 @ 10:17 pm
Kenny & Team are good people. He did the right thing. Good on him.
June 27, 2016 @ 12:51 pm
I confess that I’ve long been puzzled as to why PR people haven’t learned that the best–and ironically, easiest–thing to do is to just own up to mistakes. Yes, you get flak but odds are you’ll get that anyway (as Trigger pointed out above the chances are somebody in the audience is recording you as you speak). You get it over with quicker, and you protect your reputation for integrity. Once people get the notion that you’re a shyster even the most sincere apology won’t work anymore.
June 27, 2016 @ 7:41 pm
I’ll cut him slack on this. What I’d like to hear is an apology for “She Thinks My Tractor’s Sexy.” That one opened the floodgates in a bad way.
June 29, 2016 @ 10:54 am
OK, so shoot me. I love that song! Lol! It’s just a fun song about a guy and a girl who love farming. It shows the fun side of the artist. It’s not like he bedded her down on the back of the tractor and sang it in detail…unlike what we’re hearing on the radio now…and at least he can sing live, unlike many I’ve heard recently.