Kacey Musgraves (Photo courtesy of Instagram)

Country singer Kacey Musgraves counts the pro-LGBT anthem “Follow Your Arrow” as one of her singles but in an interview with Billboard she revealed she wasn’t always an ally.

Musgraves says in high school she would laugh along when a gay person was being bullied. After a close friend came out to her, she says her views changed.

“At 18, I was a lot more redneck than I am now,” Musgraves says. “I think back to who I was then: being in a small-town high school and seeing a gay guy get made fun of, I’d like, laugh along and not really think much about it. A best friend came out to me right after high school, and that’s when I started getting it – my perspective completely changed.”

After moving out of her small town of Golden, Texas to Nashville, Musgraves was exposed to more diversity.

“I started hanging out at this gay club, called Play, all the time, and I made so many friends,” Musgraves says. “It really hurt my heart that I had ever even been close to being the opposite of that.”

Musgraves was later inspired to write “Follow Your Arrow” and was able to see how far she’s come with accepting the LGBT community.

“I met Shane (McAnally) and Brandy Clark and we ended up writing ‘Follow Your Arrow,’ and it became this unintentional anthem,” she says. “It was really redeeming for me, because I come from where I come from. Part of me felt a little guilty that I was the Arrow girl… it has not always been my viewpoint. But I guess people can change.”