Country music star Tracy Lawrence continues to open up about nearly losing his life in a mugging more than 30 years ago.
The 57-year-old singer was shot and nearly killed in Nashville, and he recently spoke with Fox News Digital about that.
“One of the most important things you can do when you go through something like that is talk to somebody about it,” he said. “Don’t suppress it. Purge that thing out and get it out and deal with it and confront it, because if you don’t, eventually it’s going to come out in a way that you can’t control.”
Lawrence admitted that he was “angry back then.”
“I felt like … they were trying to take my opportunity away from me,” he said. “And I didn’t get the mental help that I needed.
“I’m much more aware of the consequences, whether it’s, you know, if you go through a physical altercation or family trauma or whatever those things are. I’m a big believer in taking care of your mental health these days, and I didn’t do that at the time. That was a very traumatic experience for me.”
Lawrence told Fox that, after being shot four times, he “really thought there for a while that they were going to have to amputate my leg.”
He previously discussed the shooting this year while appearing on the Big D and Bubba radio show.
“It was the night after I finished doing background vocals on (debut album) Sticks and Stones, so nobody knew who I was,” Lawrence said according to Parade Magazine. “It was a completely random thing. I was just pulling into a parking lot, and then (a) guy stuck a pistol in my face. It was wrong place, wrong time.”
Lawrence revealed that he still has part of a bullet lodged in his hip.
“It’s caused me a lot of problems, especially as I got older,” Lawrence said. “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. But it’s caused me a lot of other joint problems over the years. I still struggle with it now.”