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Kacey Musgraves has taken to X (formerly Twitter) to respond to Kristi Noem, after the Republican politician threw shade at Musgraves and claimed she preferred Ella Langley.
It all stemmed from Musgraves hosting Democrat Senate candidate, James Talarico, at her recent show. Talarico is currently battling Republican Ken Paxton in the mid-terms.
Noem referenced Langley's hit song, tweeting, “I’ll take @ellalangleymsic over Kacey Musgraves any day. And if I’m choosin’ Texas, I’ll take Ken Paxton over James Talarico”.
Musgraves has replied, “I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it”, a thinly veiled reference to Noem's admission in her 2024 autobiography that she had shot her dog, Cricket, after an unsuccessful pheasant hunt.
I don’t think you have a dog in this fight but if you did you would have shot it.
— K A C E Y (@KaceyMusgraves) October 12, 2026
In that book, Noem wrote about how she had been trying to train Cricket to become a hunting dog, but after one trip with older dogs, the wirehair pointer had been “out of her mind with excitement, chasing all those birds and having the time of her life”.
Then, after this supposedly “ruined” the hunt, Noem recalls how, after stopping to talk to a local family, Cricket escaped the truck and proceeded to attack and kill the family's chickens. She then shot Cricket - and a goat that was “nasty and mean” - in a gravel pit. Although Noem has repeatedly tried to defend her actions by simply putting it down to farm-life, the fact that so many members of the rural and farming community were also outraged by her story undoubtedly feels telling.
Putting political allegiances aside, Noem's tale of shooting Cricket remains one of the few things most people on both ends of the spectrum tend to agree is a shocking and cruel story. Musgraves’ response is a playful reference to Noem's 2024 confession.
Musgraves, a Texas native, continues her 2026 tour, with dates lined up this month in Salt Lake City, Phoenix, Los Angeles and more, with the momentum high behind the ‘Dry Spell’ hitmaker after her widely celebrated new studio album, Middle of Nowhere.
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