KANE BROWN: 'I Needed to Change'

THE COUNTRY SINGER QUIT NICOTINE AND ALCOHOL-AND STARTED TWO-HOUR WORKOUTS-TO OVERCOME HIS 'DARK THOUGHTS'

- By EILEEN FINAN

‘I want to give everything 100 percent now. I feel like I’m restarting [my life]’
—KANE BROWN

At the beginning of this year when Kane Brown took a look at himself, he wasn't happy with what he saw. But more troubling was how he felt: "Worthless. Really dark thoughts. I wanted to be in a corner left alone."

Instead, the country star had to be onstage in front of thousands, promoting his newly released fourth album (The High Road) and heading out on a 43-city arena tour. “I needed something that was going to change my headspace,” says the 31-year-old platinum-selling singer. “I didn’t feel there was anything better than changing the way I look.”

He began his transformation with a New Year's resolution to give up the Zyn nicotine pouches he'd been addicted to for years (before that, he'd been dipping tobacco since high school). “My wife wanted me to quit for the longest,” he says of Katelyn, 33, a fellow singer whom he married in 2018. “It’s a nasty habit.”