Before he was a country music superstar, Tracy Lawrence survived a mugging in Nashville that nearly cost him his life.
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The "Time Marches On" singer recently reflected on the moment, which took place in downtown Nashville in May 1991. It still affects him today. We have the details below.
Tracy Lawrence Says the Incident Was a "Completely Random Thing"
On a recent appearance on the radio show Big D and Bubba, the singer recounted the events of the mugging.
"It was the night after I finished doing background vocals on [my debut album] Sticks and Stones, so nobody knew who I was," he said. "It was a completely random thing," he recalled. "I was just pulling into a parking lot, and then [a] guy stuck a pistol in my face. It was wrong place, wrong time."
The 57-year-old said part of a bullet is still in his hip. This has caused some health problems as the singer has gotten older.
"The one that really gave me the most trouble, I got shot through the joint of my left knee, and so I had it scoped three times, and I finally wound up having to have a total replacement in 2016," he shared. "But it's caused me a lot of other joint problems over the years. I still struggle with it now."
"[I have] ankle problems now, it's giving me hip problems, and every bit of it stems from that original injury," Lawrence added.
The Incident Also Affected Lawrence's Mental Health
The bullet affected more than Lawrence's knee and hip. It also impacted his mental health.
"I never really got help until much later on in life, and it caused me a lot of problems in my relationships," he said. "It gave me a real bad attitude about some things for a while because I felt like I survived something that I didn't know if I should have. It gave me some mental problems."
The singer worked through it and now advises others in similar situations to seek professional help.
"Anytime you go through something traumatic like that, my best advice to anybody is to go get help, talk to somebody because the longer you push that stuff down, the more difficult it is," he advised. "It's gonna come to the surface eventually."
