CINCINNATI — Tim McGraw's Thursday night at Riverbend Music Center did not go entirely to plan. First he was late. Then he went down.
The 59-year-old was midway through his set, performing "I Like It, I Love It," when a cowboy boot caught on the stage flooring and sent him toppling backward. Video circulating on TikTok shows him flailing for balance before landing on his backside, then bouncing straight back to his feet, grinning, microphone still in hand. He kept singing.
McGraw got ahead of the clips himself the following day, posting concert photos to Instagram and saving the fall for the final slide, set to a voiceover about how exactly he ended up in this situation.
"Cincinnati, you started our weekend off on the right foot even if I couldn't stay on mine," he wrote, thanking the crowd for singing along before turning his attention to the next stop: "Detroit, you're up!"
A late start
The stumble capped a show that had already gotten off on the wrong foot. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, McGraw did not appear until roughly 9:40 p.m., some 40 minutes after the advertised start time.
"I made it!" he told the audience on walking out. He apologized for the delay and attributed it to a combination of travel and weather problems.
It is not the first time McGraw has ended up on the floor in front of a paying audience. In March 2018 he collapsed from dehydration during a performance at the Country to Country festival in Dublin. He handled that one with a joke too, posting a photo of himself in scuba gear on the ocean floor captioned "Hydrating."
No Dolly tribute onstage
McGraw did not mark the death of Dolly Parton during the Cincinnati show, though he had paid tribute to her on social media earlier in the week.
Calling Parton an icon who "showed us all what was possible," McGraw wrote that she was "the blueprint, head and shoulders above anyone that came before her and all those of us that have come after," and said it had been hard to get through the day without tears.
This story was first reported by Page Six. Read the original account here: https://pagesix.com/2026/08/29/entertainment/tim-mcgraw-takes-hard-fall-onstage-at-cincinnati-concert-after-arriving-40-minutes-late/
