Sturgill Simpson Says He’s Tested Positive for COVID-19

Sturgill Simpson says he’s tested positive for COVID-19. In a lengthy Instagram post, the Sound and Fury artist writes that he received the diagnosis on Friday, after nearly a month of not exhibiting symptoms.

That wasn’t the case in early March, however. Three days after playing Charleston, South Carolina, on his A Good Look’n Tour with Tyler Childers, Simpson was in a Nashville emergency room with chest pains, a fever, and what he says were “pre-stroke blood pressure levels.” He posted a photo of himself on a hospital bed wearing a mask over his nose and mouth.

Simpson expressed his dismay at being unable to be tested for COVID-19 and returned home. On April 6th, he and his wife went to a drive-thru testing facility in Alabama and received their results four days later. His wife tested negative.

The Kentucky native, who says he’s contagious and now in quarantine, criticized President Trump and the U.S. government’s response to the ongoing coronavirus crisis.  “At least our Government appointed task force headed by a man who does not believe in science is against mass testing and we now have a second task force in the works to ‘open America back up for business’!”

Last week, Simpson mourned the loss of his friend John Prine, who died Tuesday from complications related to COVID-19. “There is so much I never said only because I didn’t want to bother you with it. After all you never asked to be ‘John Prine.’ There is so much I’ll never get to say now,” he wrote. “You reminded me so much of my Grandfather it hurt sometimes. I never told you that.” Simpson’s tour with Childers is tentatively scheduled to resume April 20th in Omaha, Nebraska.

Featured via: Rollingstone