Morgan Wallen inadvertently struck Neisha Bautista with a tossed baseball bat while mimicking former Toronto Blue Jays slugger José Bautista’s celebrated bat flip during a pre-concert walkout at Rogers Centre in Toronto on Friday night.
Video of the exchange, which circulated widely online, shows Bautista handing Wallen a wooden bat as the two chatted backstage before the country singer’s set on the second night of his "I'm the Problem" tour. Wallen swung the bat and then threw it aside; the clip shows the bat striking Neisha Bautista, who was standing nearby filming, and she can be heard crying out in pain.
Neisha Bautista shared a first-person clip of the moment to her Instagram stories, captioning it, "When Morgan Wallen bat flips your husband’s bat and hits you," accompanied by laughing and peeking-eye emojis. A tweet from Jomboy Media that included the clip also helped spread the footage online.
José Bautista told ETalkCTV that his wife was "completely fine" and described the incident as an accident. "I talked him into doing the bat flip, and funny enough, my wife ended up getting hit by the bat," Bautista said. "But she's completely fine. It was a complete accident and she's totally okay."
Both men appeared to play to the cameras after the toss, and Wallen proceeded to walk onstage to perform. Wallen posted a clip of the walkout on his own Instagram account but has not issued a public statement addressing the incident.
The move referenced by Wallen and Bautista is one for which Bautista became widely known. In 2015, José Bautista famously tossed his bat following a three-run homer that helped send the Blue Jays to the next round of the American League Division Series against the Texas Rangers; that bat flip became a signature moment in his career and a recurring cultural reference in baseball and beyond.
Wallen, 32, released his album "I'm the Problem" in March. The singer has remained a polarizing figure in recent years after several headline-making incidents, including the appearance of a 2021 video in which he used a racial slur, an arrest last year related to throwing a chair from a rooftop bar in Tennessee, and an abrupt exit from the stage following a March appearance on "Saturday Night Live." Those incidents and their fallout have continued to shape public discussion of his career.
Event organizers and the performers did not immediately respond to requests for further comment. The Bautistas and Wallen described the bat toss as unintentional, and no reports have indicated any serious injury resulted from the incident.
