Maddie & Tae‘s late-2025 decision to split up wasn’t on our bingo card for this year, but in hindsight, it probably should have been.
Almost since the beginning, their career has faced tough hurdles. They’ve had bad luck with labels and gotten passed over at radio and awards shows.
READ MORE: Maddie & Tae Announce ‘Heartbreaking’ Decision to Split Up
And in the last few years, since they’ve started having kids, Maddie & Tae haven’t just had to deal with the genre’s gender inequalities: They’ve had to deal with its mom bias (more on that below.)
Add to that the very relatable pain of having to choose between career opportunities and family time. They sang about that pull in their 2025 release, “Chasing Babies & Raising Dreams.”
In fact, it’s a testament to Maddie Font and Taylor Kerr’s talent, passion and friendship that they made it this far at all.
Did Maddie & Tae Break Up?
The duo is avoiding the term “breakup,” but according to their announcement to People this week, the career change is more than just a temporary hiatus.
The longtime best friends underscored that they’re closer than ever — personal rifts didn’t cause their split — and said it’s possible they’ll tour or release music again in the future. But for now, the duo seems pretty definitively on ice.
They reached that decision after Kerr decided to pivot to being a stay-at-home mom to her two children: Three-year-old daughter Leighton and 1-year-old son Chapel.
Maddie Font — who is mom to a 2-year-old boy named Forrest — will pursue a solo career.
Maddie & Tae Have Had a Rocky Road With Labels
Maddie & Tae were the flagship artists for the relaunch of Dot Records in 2014, and scored two early hits there with “Girl in a Country Song” and “Fly.”
The imprint shuttered in March 2017, when the duo were in the middle of working on a new album. Maddie & Tae quickly signed a new deal with UMG as part of UMG’s option to bring over Dot artists, since Dot was a joint venture between Universal and Big Machine Label Group.
But Maddie & Tae would never again be the top female priority for a label, despite notching a No. 1 hit in 2019 with “Die From a Broken Heart.”
Maddie & Tae Label Depression
They were open with their fans about how hard that label shakeup was: Font even said she went through a period of “pretty tough depression,” adding, “my self-worth was tied into it, my purpose, everything.”
Still, they rallied and vowed to come back stronger.
Why Were Maddie & Tae Always Snubbed at Awards Shows?
Maddie & Tae never quite got their due from the industry. They won one CMA Award for “Girl in a Country Song” in 2015, but never claimed another, despite 12 more career nominations.
11 of those were for Vocal Duo of the Year: Maddie & Tae were nominated in the category every single year between 2015 and 2025, but never won.
During that period, Brothers Osborne won the trophy six times, despite having only one No. 1 U.S. country hit — less than Maddie & Tae. Brothers Osborne are a talented, deserving duo, and there’s more to success than chart-topping singles.
Still, the CMA should have shared the wealth. Maddie & Tae deserved the trophy as much as any of the other nominees.
That pattern of nominations but no wins continued at the ACMs. Maddie & Tae were nominated for 11 different ACMs between 2014 and 2023, and they won zero.
Duo of the Year categories are notoriously difficult, and susceptible to being handed out to the same act for years in a row. But beyond that, there’s no real explanation why Maddie & Tae would get shut out at these shows.
They were doing the work. They had just as many accolades, hits and fans as many of their fellow nominees. They should have gotten their turn to win more often.
Theo Wargo, Getty Images
And those snubs help explain why Maddie Font was so gobsmacked when they did win Duo/Group Video of the Year at the 2022 CMT Music Awards, and why she broke down crying as she accepted the trophy on the pair’s behalf (Kerr was home with her newborn daughter at the time). That recognition was a long time coming!
The Country Music Industry Is Biased Against Women — And It’s Biased Against Moms
Let’s be clear: Deciding to prioritize your family over your career is a valid, powerful choice.
But when the music industry makes it this hard for women and moms to succeed, the word choice is a tricky one.
Gender bias at country radio, festivals and in touring lineups is well documented and has been for years. Back in 2015, Maddie & Tae themselves were among the loudest artist voices pushing back against the Tomatogate controversy.
The numbers have not improved since. Billboard data shows that only 8.39 percent of artists on the radio in the past year were women, down from 29 percent in 2000.
In August, data from Mediabase revealed that all of the Top 10 most-played artists on country radio were white men. And Billboard‘s 2025 year-end Power Rankings continue to paint a grim picture of female representation in country music.
Notice that Maddie & Tae’s career foundered when they were no longer the top female priority at a record label. That’s not a problem men face.
Labels don’t need to pick a man to be their leading act at the expense of their other male artists, because there’s no discourse about only having room for one man at the top of the genre.
And for women who choose to start families, the uphill climb to mainstream stardom is even steeper.
Part of that is logistical. Touring often means being away from family for long stretches of time.
For a postpartum, breastfeeding or pregnant artist, it can be nearly impossible. Maddie & Tae once canceled a tour in 2021 because Kerr, in the midst of a difficult pregnancy with her daughter, was placed on bedrest.
Given all of that, it’s not a huge surprise that country’s women sometimes choose to delay having kids, or decide not to have children altogether.
What Have Other Country Stars Said About Having Kids?
Kelsea Ballerini recently sang about this phenomenon in “I Sit in Parks,” a song that sums up the largely female experience of deciding what to focus on — kids or career — and then constantly second-guessing if you’ve made the right decision.
From what she says in and about the song, Ballerini’s still on the fence about parenthood for herself. Several of the country greats before her have spoken about falling on the “no” side of that fence, though their decisions against parenthood are typically at least partially circumstantial.
Read More: 11 Country Stars Who Never Had Children
Dolly Parton, Miranda Lambert, Jeannie Seely and Trisha Yearwood have all echoed some variation of the sentiment that the freedom of childlessness allows them to mentor younger artists, commit more fully to their fan bases or prioritize children in their philanthropy.
All wonderful reasons to be childfree — but frankly, we’ve never heard of a big male star having to choose between parenthood and the fullest expression of his musical dreams.
Country Music Has a Parenthood Double Standard
Female artists with children also have to work against the bias from radio programmers and label executives who may cool on their music, anticipating that they’ll slow down or step away from their careers in order to focus on raising their kids.
Male artists with children aren’t met with those assumptions.
Jason Kempin, Getty Images
When Luke Combs, for example, took a year off touring in 2025 in order to be home with his young family, he was able to return with a bigger-than-ever stadium tour in 2026, seemingly without a hitch.
READ MORE: Luke Combs Isn’t Really Touring in 2025 — Here’s Why
Combs is one of country music’s biggest superstars, and he’s worked hard to get to a level where temporarily taking his foot off the gas doesn’t impact his career long-term.
But would a woman in his position be able to do the same without raising questions about her commitment to music?
Maddie Font and Taylor Kerr have long prioritized family. When they married their husbands, they publicly started going by their new last names, even though that’s not the norm for female artists and probably caused some logistical headaches.
Jason Kempin, Getty Images for Ford Motor Company
Meanwhile, for male artists, having kids can even be a career boost. Just look at how Thomas Rhett, Jordan Davis, Russell Dickerson and Scotty McCreery have made fatherhood into a major part of their brands.
For women, becoming a mom is a career liability.
Once again, let’s be clear that no one needs to justify or contextualize their decision to reframe their career after becoming a parent. And Maddie & Tae likely made the decision to split up based on lots of factors. Their career has been under rewarded for years now, both commercially and critically.
Still, their departure from the industry highlights a major injustice. Women already face bias in country music because of their gender, and if they choose to have children, they’re making a massive sacrifice to their careers that’s simply not expected of their male counterparts.
Maddie & Tae said that they finally decided to call it quits when Kerr said that her heart was ultimately at home, not out on the road. Though fans will miss the duo’s music, her choice to follow a different dream should be celebrated.
But it should have been a choice she got to make on fair terms, and fair terms for mothers is something the country music industry has never offered.
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Gallery Credit: Billy Dukes