Tim McGraw is having a bittersweet year. On one hand, his daughter Audrey McGraw is making her grand debut opening for Brandi Carlile on her Lost Time Tour across Europe, on the other, he’s having to take a step back from returning to the stage.
In case you missed it, the 58-year-old country singer took off much of the past year to recover from a series of ailments and subsequent complications. After ample rehabilitation, Tim returned to the stage on May 31 at the Music City Rodeo, which was set to kick off a string of rodeo performances throughout the summer. On Monday, June 23, however, Colorado State announced that Tim had to back out of the Colorado State and Professional Bull Riders 'Last Cowboy Standing' event, slated for July 21, due to a recent back surgery.
Without word from Tim, fans can’t help but feel cheated now that Cross Canadian Ragweed, a band that’s been on hiatus for 15 years, is taking his spot. “Well, that’s disappointing,” one fan commented on the CSU Athletics Instagram post. “Paid for Tim and got a band that was on hiatus for 15 years?! That’s really the best we could do,” another fan asked.
While Tim hasn’t commented on the news, he has spoken about his rocky health in recent years. “To have almost a year of just sitting there (doing nothing), and I can tell you that after double knee replacements and three back surgeries and now a torn rotator cuff and a ruptured disc, there were times this year that I thought this might be it,” he revealed in a May 2025 appearance on the Tracy Lawrence’s Road House podcast. “This might be time to hang it up… It’s gonna come to a point to where I’m either gonna have to decide to change the way I do a live show to continue to do it, or just not do it anymore.”
Here’s hoping the “My Best Friend” singer just needs more time to rest and recover. We can’t imagine a country music tour circuit without his shows. Get well soon, TM!
Rebecca Norris is a full-time freelance writer living in the Washington, D.C. metro area. Over the past 10+ years, she’s heavily covered a range of lifestyle topics, including travel, home, beauty, style, wellness, and celebrity news. She is a graduate of George Mason University, where she earned a B.A. in Media: Production, Consumption, and Critique, along with a minor in Electronic Journalism. When she's not writing, she can be found strolling with her Jack-Chi, Cash, sipping iced matcha lattes, indulging in delicious cuisine, perusing farmer’s markets and antique sales, collecting colored glass, getting lost within the pages of a book, and exploring new bucket-list cities.
