Zach Bryan Posts Video About Oklahoma Arrest, Says He Got ‘Too Lippy’ With Officers: ‘I Don’t Think I’m Above the Law’
After his arrest on Thursday evening (Sept. 7) in Oklahoma for obstruction of an investigation, Zach Bryan posted a video on Friday morning (Sept. 8) further explaining what happened during the incident in which he said he got “too lippy” with officers.
Bryan is sitting in his car in the nearly five-minute clip, speaking directly to fans while driving to New York with his dog Jack in the passenger seat. “I just wanted to be completely transparent with everyone who listens to my music about what happened yesterday with me getting arrested,” said the singer who just scored his first Billboard 200 No. 1 album with his new self-titled project and his first Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 song with “I Remember Everything,” featuring Kacey Musgraves.
Prefacing his story by saying that he will have to deal with the “legalities” of the arrest, that he did go to jail and that police did not play any favorites with him, Bryan bluntly said, “I was an idiot today. My decisions did not reflect who I was as a person… I should have been smarter about it”; in an earlier social media post, Bryan said he’d had an “incident” with the Oklahoma Highway Patrol and that “emotions got the best of me, and I was out of line in the things I said.”
He then laid out what he said was the full timeline of events, which Bryan explained began three days ago when he was driving through a small town in Oklahoma, where he was pulled over by a police office for going “4-5 [miles] over” the speed limit. The singer said after being asked for his license, registration and address, he explained to the officer that he was not comfortable giving out his address because of his notoriety as a musician.
Bryan said the officer informed him that if he did not give his address he would go to jail. “I’m like, ‘man, I’m not gonna give you my address,'” Bryan said he told the cop, who then allegedly asked him to step out of the vehicle, at which point the singer said he was handcuffed. “I’m like, ‘man, what the hell is going on? Why are you doing this?'” he recalled saying.
After Bryan discussed it with the officer, he agreed to give his address and the cuffs were taken off, but the encounter “frustrated me a lot because I didn’t know if I had a right to refuse giving him my address,” he said. Fast forward to Thursday, when Bryan tells his security guard that he’s driving to Boston to see his favorite team, the Philadelphia Eagles, play the New England Patriots in Foxborough on Sunday.
The pair begin driving and Bryan said they were 40 minutes from his Tulsa house — with his security guard trailing him in another car — when he saw his security get pulled over. Bryan said he pulled around the block and parked his car near his security guard’s and waited for the traffic stop to conclude. After 15 minutes Bryan said he wondered why it was taking so long, so he got out of his car. “I was gonna smoke a cigarette [and] the cop comes up to me and he’s like, ‘sir, get back in your vehicle.’ And I’m like, ‘I’m not the one getting pulled over,'” Bryan said he told the officer.
When told he would go to jail if he didn’t get back in his car, “like a dumbass I said, ‘take me to f—ing jail? What do you mean?'” Bryan said he replied, admitting that he got “too lippy” with the cop, who then brought him over to his cruiser. “I didn’t help my situation at all,” Bryan said of his confrontation with the patrolman. “I felt like a child, it was ridiculous, it was immature. And I just pray everyone knows I don’t think I’m above the law. I was just being disrespectful and I shouldn’t have been and it was my mistake.”
After getting cuffed for the second time in three days — Bryan noted that the restraints were tight on his wrists — the singer was placed in the front seat of the cruiser, where he engaged in some back-and-forth about how the handcuffs hurt. He said the officer told him, “they’re not supposed to be comfortable.” Bryan said he began getting “more angry and angry” about the situation, “which is the worst thing you can do.”
After 15 minutes Bryan said he was released from the police cruiser, at which point he said he was just “mouthing off, like an idiot. Like an actual child. I’m like, ‘man, someone’s gotta get a hold of you guys. Why are you using your authority like this? This is so wrong.’ When in reality they were just doing their jobs. I was upset.”
He said the officer then explained that he was going to talk to Bryan and he didn’t want to be interrupted, after which Bryan said he would listen, but then he wanted to respond. “He started talking, I interrupted him. Naturally, because I was just angry,” Bryan said. The officer then informed the singer that he was taking him to jail, where he spent several hours, during which Bryan said he “cooled off a little bit.”
He said everyone in booking at the Vinita, OK jail was very kind to him and that he and the arresting officer ended up shaking hands, after which he posted his online apology note. “I was just an idiot and I’ll take the fall for it,” Bryan said. “I’m a grown man and I shouldn’t have behaved like that. And it won’t happen again.”
Watch Bryan’s video below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard
