Kacey Musgraves on New Lee Collection, Online Stunts and Acting Future

Fresh off of the release of her new album, Middle of Nowhere, Kacey Musgraves is not slowing down.

Before she heads out on the road to tour the record later this summer, the country star is dropping a capsule collection with denim brand Lee, featuring more than 100 men’s and women’s items that span jeans, tees, jackets, dresses, sleepwear, swimwear, accessories and pet accessories. The collection is titled Kacey Lee, in a nod to her middle name, and has been designed exclusively for Walmart.

“It was my dream to make a collection that was available to all people everywhere, even people out in the middle of nowhere,” Musgraves tells The Hollywood Reporter of tying the collab in with her new music. “This collection is going to be spread way out across America, big cities and small towns, and so I was thinking about fans in big cities as well as people even in my tiny hometown.”

She has been working on Kacey Lee for about a year — designing as she was wrapping up work on Middle of Nowhere — and a number of the pieces feature lyrics and visual elements from both the new album and her past projects.

“It was hard to narrow it down because I feel like there’s a lot of fun imagery and buzzwords on this record that you could lean into,” Musgraves says of choosing which lyrics to highlight. “But I was also like, maybe it’s cool to infuse some of the older songs in there too. So there’s kind of a mix — Pageant Material gets a bit of love in this collection, which I think fans will like because they’re always bullying me to include more Pageant Material, which, hey, bullying works.”

The artist notes she was guided by the barometer of “Do I actually like this? Would I actually wear this? Can I stand behind this? Is it cool in my own eyes?” while also keeping in mind what fans want to wear to concerts. Musgraves is already anticipating what she may see in the crowd on her new tour, emphasizing, “I’ve loved this modern day of concert-going where people kind of pick a theme and run with it and it’s almost like Halloween. They just have so much fun with it and it’s fun for me to look out and see people in the crowd really expressing themselves.”

Looking back at the past several weeks since releasing Middle of Nowhere on May 1, Musgraves says, “to see people gravitate towards the songs that really mean so much to me is truly just the icing on the beautiful cake.” And as for how active she is in reading reviews or gauging reaction on social media, she explains, “I kind of dip in here and there but I don’t live and die by what the public is saying. Everyone’s entitled to their own opinion and the only opinion that matters to me is mine. I’m really proud of it and it was an important album for me to make so that’s kind of really my compass there — but it’s been really great to see people really connecting.”

Leading up to the release, Musgraves went about her album promo in some unconventional ways — among them, dressed up as an armadillo to get her copy at Walmart and performing in Ronnie Dunn drag at a surprise Nashville show.

“The side quests are getting so crazy, I don’t think I can control them anymore. I don’t know where the line is, I’ve lost the plot,” Musgraves laughs. “It’s just fun to like not take shit so seriously. I just feel like we live in such a serious world and there’s something that feels a bit cringey to me if I were to be super earnest and going into the store and being like, ‘Hey guys’ — cue the influencer voice — ‘my new album is out, go get it now.’”

“I’d rather just have more fun with it and kind of flip things on their head. I know my manager, he sighs the biggest sighs when he sees me coming out in the armadillo costume. He’s like, ‘Really?’” she continues, acknowledging she doesn’t run her stunts by anyone so “no one can talk me out of it.”

And will her online skits ever lead to more serious acting work? Not so fast.

“I’m a terrible actress, I feel. I laugh, I’m a laugher. I start overthinking. If they’re like, ‘Hey, walk across this room and go pick up that glass,’ I’m like, ‘How do you do that again?’ Like the awkwardness jumps out,” she teases. “I don’t know. I guess never say never. I’m open to really anything that feels organic, but you never know. If they have a role for, you know, a burgeoning armadillo, maybe I’ll consider it.”

Starting May 19, the Kacey Lee collection will be available exclusively at Walmart and Walmart.com, launching in approximately 2,100 stores nationwide. This collab follows the first-ever fashion collection the star did in 2024, a 17-piece line with Reformation.