Chris Young can now laugh about his arrest earlier this year — sort of — but it was definitely no laughing matter at the time. The singer-songwriter was arrested in January and charged with disorderly conduct, assaulting an officer and resisting arrest after he allegedly became aggressive with agents from the Alcoholic Beverage Commission at Tin Roof, later following them to DawgHouse.

Those charges were, fortunately, dropped as soon as Nashville’s District Attorney reviewed the video footage and saw the ludicrousness of Young being charged. Still, although he appeared to laugh it off, the legal charges impacted Young in a profound way.

“Everybody likes that I’m self-deprecating and make jokes about it, but at the same time, of course, I was worried,” Young tells CMT. “Everybody likes to say that all press is good press, but that’s never been my mentality. I’m not the kind of person who wants that kind of press.”

Young, who has since vowed to have t-shirts made with his mugshot on them, knew from the moment he was arrested that he was innocent, and is grateful that not only he had the law on his side, but public opinion as well.

“In the aftermath, everybody sees I didn’t do anything, and I didn’t deserve to be arrested,” Young says. “Everybody likes to make jokes about it, but at the same time, of course I was worried. Now everybody realizes it was basically a big old nothing burger.”

After the charges were dropped, Young spoke out on social media, thanking fans for their support.

“Hey guys, so I just wanted to say something,” Young began. “You know, I’m still processing a lot through the false accusations and everything that went on in the past week. But I wanted to say first and foremost, thank you to everybody that had my back. It meant the world to me and I had so many friends and fans reach out and say, ‘We got you. We don’t believe you did any of this.’

“So it’s really nice to see the charges get dismissed,” he added. “It’s not something I wish anybody has to go through ever. But, like I said, the bright spot was seeing just all the love and support.”

The arrest came as Young was deep into promotion for his latest album, Young Love & Saturday Nights, out now. The Tennessee native wrote 15 of the 18 tracks on the record, his first project since Famous Friends came out in 2021.

“I wanted this album to be special. I had a lot of time to work on this record, even though patience is not my strong suit,” Young said when Young Love & Saturday Nights was released. “I decided, ‘Hey, let’s change things up a little bit.’ There are songs on here that I didn’t write. There are songs on here that I co-wrote. There are songs that I produced by myself. There are songs I produced with my friends. And I really was just trying to find a lot of things that I wanted to say.”

Included on Young Love & Saturday Nights is “What She Sees In Me,” one of Young’s favorite love songs he has ever written.

“What She Sees In Me is a song that honestly got started by a couple of my friends, and I very rarely jump in after something’s been started,” Young says. “I like to be there from the very, very beginning. But before they got too far along, my buddy Josh, who called me, was like, ‘Dude, I think you’ll crush this. This sounds like you. I love this idea. Check this out. And if you want to finish it with us, you can finish it with us.’ And so I wrote a second verse and like sort of a bridge idea and sent it back to them. And he was like, ‘Yes, you’re in. Come on. Let’s do this.’”

“[It’s a] beautiful, beautiful love song,” he continues. “And I think it says what a lot of people would say, when you’re looking at someone that you’re so massively in love with. Like, I still don’t see what they see in me because I think they are just the pinnacle of perfection.“

Young’s Young Love & Saturday Nights Tour kicks off on April 25 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Find all of Young’s music and tour dates at ChrisYoungCountry.com.