Jason Aldean’s Wife Opens up About Surviving the Route 91 Harvest Festival Shooting

Nearly a decade after the Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting in Las Vegas, Jason Alden’s wife, Brittany, opens up about surviving the tragedy.

While appearing on the Get Real with Caroline Hobby podcast, Brittany recalls moments of the mass shooting, which claimed the lives of 58 of the 2017 music festival’s attendees. She described the event as “the most horrific experience” of her life. The country music singer’s wife was eight months pregnant with their son, Memphis, at the time.

“They were like, ‘You need to stand up, and we’re going to the bus,’” Brittany said while recalling the first few moments of the shooting. “They pick me up, and I put my brakes on, kind of like a dog, you know.”

She continued to reflect on the event, stating, “I was like, I know that the shooting was coming from that way and I just ran from that way because I could just tell. The sounds were different. And they were taking me to the bus, which was the way that the shots seemed to be coming from. And so, I just put my brakes on, and I was like, ‘Absolutely not. We’re not doing that. I’m not going that way.’ And then they all but just [carried me to the tour bus]. I had to. I didn’t have a choice.”

Brittany pointed out that the tour bus was shot six times while she and others were inside of it.

Elsewhere in the interview, Brittany spoke about mental recovery of her and others who were part of the Oct. 1, 2017 tragedy.

“I think people also don’t think about what people saw that lived, and that is something you do not recover from,” she pointed out. “You know, seeing those thigns around you. So we had, like, therapists for the remainder of the [tour], for people to talk to because it’s tough.”

She then shared, “It’s hard to go back [to] playing. I can’t imagine how the boys — I don’t know how they got back out on stage.”

The country music star’s wife described the devastating event as being like war. “Being in war and not wanting to be in war. I’ve never heard or seen anything like that in my life… The boys were so worried about me going into labor because it was chaos, and I just went around to each of them and said how much I loved them.”

Brittany further spoke about her husband’s reaction and recovery from the shooting. Neither of them was injured or shot.

“I can’t imagine how he feels because it was his fans. I can’t imagine that feeling of like, those people were there because of me and has got to be such a heavy burden to bear,” she added. “My husband doesn’t speak a lot on things like that, but that sea of awesome fans were his fans, and so that’s just got to be so heavy.”

The Route 91 Harvest Festival shooting happened on the final night of the event and is considered the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Jason and Brittany’s son, Memphis, was born on Dec. 1, 2017, just two months after the shooting.