Megan Moroney on Dressing Like Dolly, Dating Rumors and Dreaming of Meeting Taylor Swift

Megan Moroney is standing inside a life-size snow globe in a mini dress and sparkly heels with fake snow blowing all around her on the set of her PEOPLE StyleWatch holiday shoot in New York City. It’s a campy winter wonderland complete with pine trees, a snowmobile and a chairlift, and the rising country star, 28, is game to play along. “Anything that makes me feel like a Barbie doll, I’m into,” she says.

Despite being up late the night before —more on that later — she is full of energy. As Taylor Swift’s The Life of a Showgirl plays in the background (her request), Moroney works her angles, and at one point, she dangles a disco ball ornament in one hand and knocks on air to the chorus of “Wood” with the other. A true dream come true for a girl who just five years ago was performing at her sorority (she’s a Kappa Delta!) charity event.

When Moroney, who was born in Savannah, GA, graduated from college she moved  to Nashville to pursue her passion for music. “I would write every single day, sometimes by myself, or I would write with anyone that would write with me,” she says. After eight months with minimal success, she considered moving back home. But she stuck it out, performing anywhere and everywhere. In 2022, she released her debut single “Tennessee Orange,” which went viral on TikTok thanks to its storyline about a Georgia Bulldogs-supporting girl who falls for a fan of their rivals, the Tennessee Volunteers. “It got me a record deal,” she says of the hit song. “I think it really changed everything.” 

Since then, Moroney, who calls herself an “emo-cowgirl” has become known for her confessional songwriting about guys who ghosted her and rekindling with old flames.

“I just remember being like, ‘I’m so emotional,’ and it was really hard for me to write happy songs and very easy to write sad songs, so it just happened one day,” she says of her storytelling approach. “Then, I was like, ‘I guess this is a thing now.’”

Dressing the Part

Her lyrics may be emo, but her look is anything but. When Moroney’s on stage, she goes “very Dolly-like” with an “over-the-top” style. While touring to promote her gold 2024 album, Am I Okay?, she wore an array of bejeweled cobalt blue ensembles and white cowgirl boots inspired by Parton. “Anytime I ask myself in the mirror, ‘Is this too much?’ I’m like, ‘No. Dolly would do it,” she says with a smile.

When it comes to her everyday wardrobe, she opts for comfort. “I’m a matching sets girl, and [I wear] UGGs,” she says. “That’s pretty much my uniform.” She’s equally low-key when it comes to her off-duty glam. “Anytime I’m not on stage, I’m like, ‘Do not put fake hair in my head, please. Do not put false flashes on me. I need to just breathe for a second,’” she insists.

Moroney has even channeled her love of athleisure into a series of capsule collections with one of her favorite brands, Boys Lie. According to her, 99% of her offstage wardrobe is Boys Lie, Alo and Aritzia. “It’s pretty basic, honestly,” she laughs.

And while she loved getting decked on in festive holiday outfits for this shoot, she’s looking forward to keeping it casual for Christmas. For her, that means an opportunity to be peak-cozy in a matching pajama set and a “no-makeup-makeup look.” “I don’t even want to take the family pictures because that means I’ve got to get ready,” she jokes.  

Basking in a Banner Year

Moroney had many highs this year, most notably in September, when she tied for most-nominated artist at the 2025 CMA Awards. It was the ultimate finale after a string of incredible moments.

Before landing those coveted nods, she released the duet “You Had to Be There” with Kenny Chesney and her single “6 Months Later,” which dropped in June and hit No. 1 on Spotify’s all-genre Top Songs debut chart. Alongside the track, Moroney shared a Black Mirror-meets-2000s rom-com-inspired music video for “6 Months Later,” which she co-directed with her creative director, CeCe Dawson. 

“I had this idea where, in a perfect world, you would be able to hit a button and bad things happen to your ex, and then you’d get to watch it on a screen,” says Moroney. In a sea of pastels and fuzzy cardigans, the music video even features a “Karma Now! hotline,” where scorned lovers can exact revenge on exes. “I wish that was real,” she deadpans.

By September, Moroney also notably took home her first MTV Video Music Award for Best Country for the title track of her album Am I Okay? Because she had never attended the awards show, she called it a “surreal” experience.

“You look around and you see Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga and the cast of Jersey Shore, and you’re like, ‘Wow! I’m really here with all these people right now,” an awestruck Moroney recalls. But discovering she won and got to perform? “It was definitely just an unforgettable night, and I loved it,” she says. 

Making (New) Famous Friends

Still, there’s a part of Moroney that remains astonished by the moments she’s experienced with her famous peers. During last year’s Hangout Music Festival, she and Lana Del Rey, whom she praises as “sweet and supportive,” performed a rendition of “Tennessee Orange.” “She ended up staying at the festival a day later to come do that with me, so I thought that was so sweet of her,” says Moroney. “She’s just a Disney princess in real life.”

Moroney also found a close pal and mentor in Kenny Chesney after supporting him on his 2024 Sun Goes Down stadium tour, which led to their collaboration “You Had to Be There.” “Some days, I’ll just wake up and be like, ‘Oh. Kenny Chesney is one of my best friends. Cool,’” Moroney says casually.

After initially becoming friends on Instagram, Moroney teamed up with Tate McRae on stage to perform songs “Tennessee Orange” and “6 Months Later” on two separate occasions. The duo has yet to team up in the studio, but Moroney says she would love to release a song with her. “We are going on vacation together, so who knows? Maybe we’ll get some margaritas and want to write something,” she says.

And the night before her PEOPLE StyleWatch cover shoot, Moroney reunited with Ed Sheeran for an intimate, surprise show in Brooklyn, after previously playing together at the Bluebird Cafe in Nashville in March. “We’d email and send each other songs back and forth, so it’s been really cool to get to know him a little bit,” she says, noting that working on a collaboration has been on their minds. They’ve been trying to figure out the right song to do together. “I think when the time is right and the song is right, it’ll happen,” she says.

Studying at the Taylor Swift School of Stardom

While Moroney adores her music industry pals, she also relishes her downtime — working out at the gym or binge-watching Netflix documentaries — or sipping spicy margaritas with her friends from home who have “normal jobs.” “I’m like, ‘Let’s just not talk about music for a little bit,” she says.

In fact, that Georgia sorority girl spirit is still intact. When she’s on the road, she likes to take her friends and family along. “It feels like a little piece of home is with me,” Moroney explains. 

She’s also surrounded by support at work. “Even though it’s my name everywhere, it’s really fun celebrating my team, my band, and my crew. I just love anytime I can be with all of them and let them know, too, that their hard work is paying off, and that I wouldn’t be here without them,” says Moroney.

When asked whose career she’s most inspired by, Moroney immediately namechecks Taylor Swift. “I find it so inspiring that she can put out 12 different albums, and they all sound different,” says Moroney. It’s on Moroney’s “bucket list” to meet Swift — and share her gratitude for helping shape her own path. “The way that she’s handled all the business side of things is something that I’ve learned from, so I’d like to thank her — and maybe get some drinks or something.” 

Putting Love Last (For Now)

As Moroney’s star power has exploded, so have the dating rumors. But true to her easygoing nature, she welcomes them. Back in 2022 when “Tennessee Orange” was released, fans suspected it could be about a rumored romance with Morgan Wallen. 

In a July 2024 interview with Call Her Daddy, Moroney revealed that she “never exclusively” dated him. “At the end of the day, being honest with my songwriting is what’s gotten me this far,” says Moroney. “So I never let the possibility that people might speculate stop me from writing about how this situation made me feel.” In fact, Moroney has nothing but praise for Wallen. “I think Morgan is great and his new album [I’m the Problem] is great — he and I are still friends,” she says. 

In early 2025, Moroney was linked to Riley Green after fans on TikTok thought they were on vacation together, but by March Green told the In the Blind podcast that he was “single.” 

Recently, there’s been speculation of a romance with NFL star Nick Bosa after she shared an Instagram post, which featured her in a Levi’s Stadium suite holding a jersey emblazoned with “Moroney 9” after the 49ers faced off with the Arizona Cardinals. (Bosa wears 97, but fans suspected romance could be brewing.) However, Moroney was quick to shut them down. “I’m not dating right now at all,” she says. “I’m too busy.”

Looking Forward

On Nov. 9, Moroney’s fans noted that her longtime blue Instagram profile icon transformed to hot pink. Two days later, she announced her third studio album Cloud 9 (dropping Feb. 20), which features Moroney immersed in a flurry of cotton-candy clouds surrounding her own stairway to heaven on the cover art. “It’s the most excited I’ve been about an album release so far, and I think it’s because I [had] the most time to work on this one,” she says. 

“It’s written from a perspective where my feet are really planted, and I feel really confident with where I’m at in my life and who’s around me,” she says, noting the music is “sassy” and there’s an air of sarcasm in some of the songs. She calls the forthcoming record her “favorite child,” and jokes that “I think I would ditch the first two for this one.”

An unreleased song she teased over the past few years — “Wedding Dress” — even made the cut, thanks to her fans. “Had they not been constantly bugging me about it, it probably wouldn’t have made the record, just because I’m so past that feeling,” Moroney admits. She thinks her fans will not only love it, but “crash out to it.”

Ahead of the album’s announcement, Moroney released the pep talk-meets-ballad “Beautiful Things” in late October. Moroney recalls thinking of her now two-year-old niece as she was co-writing the track. “When they’re so innocent, little and perfect, you want to protect them from how hard the world can be sometimes when they get older,” she says. Moroney hopes her latest single, like many of her others, will carry listeners through difficult moments. “I was just thinking of middle school when I wasn’t invited to things — or during my first breakup — I wish I had a song [like] ‘Beautiful Things.’”

Moroney is ready for the world to hear it all, regardless of the response. “This is my best foot forward for where I’m at, and if you don’t like it, then you just don’t like my music, and that’s okay, because I really love it,” she says, “and I’m the one that’s got to get up there and sing it every night.”