Blake Shelton ‘Heartbroken’ Over Jimmy Buffett’s Death
Blake Shelton is grieving the loss of Jimmy Buffett after the legendary singer-songwriter's death on Friday (Sept. 1.)
In a social media post, Shelton paid tribute to Buffett's massive impact, saying that he was "heartbroken" to hear that he had died. "What an incredible talent and man. His songs will live on forever," the country star continued.
Not only was Shelton a massive fan of Buffett, the multi-genre artist who cultivated his beach bum lifestyle into a musical escape for his fans and expanded that aesthetic into a brand that included hotels, casinos, restaurants and even a cruise ship inspired by his signature song, "Margaritaville."
The two stars also had a special connection over a song and Shelton's TV show, Barmageddon. "I'll bet most of y'all don't know that he wrote the theme song for [Barmageddon] for me about 2 years ago," Shelton added.
Early this year, Shelton explained that he got the idea to ask Buffett to write the Barmageddon theme after reaching out to him to get clearance to sing "Margaritaville" in one of the game show's episodes. When Buffett said he loved the name of Shelton's TV series, the country singer jumped at the chance to get Buffett even more involved in Barmageddon.
He asked Buffett to write an original song, and promised to use it as the theme song -- before he even heard what Buffett came up with.
"I figured Jimmy Buffett can pull this off if anybody in the world can...It ends up being perfect," he recounted. "I mean, it really is actually just [a] good, fun song. It gets stuck in your head, and I mean, who else can say that Jimmy Buffett wrote the theme song for the TV show?"
According to a statement shared on his website, Buffett died "peacefully" on Friday night, "surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs." TMZ has subsequently reported that his cause of death was skin cancer which turned to lymphoma. He was 76 years old.