Love him or hate him, Morgan Wallen was not only thee biggest country artist in the world in 2023, but one of the biggest artists in all of music.
The 30 year-old singer dominated the charts and continuously broke records with his recent double album, “One Thing At A Time.”
Despite the release of the video that put a damper on his career back in 2021, Morgan’s fans stood by his side. In a recent interview with Billboard, Wallen touched on the whole incident for the first time in two years since he appeared alongside Michael Strahan on Good Morning America.
The incident, as most of you are probably aware at this point, involved Morgan being caught on camera by his neighbor using the N-Word, leading him to be suspended from his label, his music pulled from major country stations, and banned from award shows.
Multiple fellow country artists spoke out, acknowledging that what he said was wrong and hurtful, as well as noting he was not free from the consequences that followed his actions. However, many defended the Whiskey Glasses singer, including Kane Brown and Jimmie Allen, telling the public they didn’t feel Morgan was a racist.
Now, after two years, Morgan is speaking out about the Incident once again:
“That person is definitely not the same person I am now.
There’s no excuse. I’ve never made an excuse. I never will make an excuse.”
He then goes on to express the different emotions he felt after the video was released by TMZ:
“In my heart I was never that guy that people were portraying me to be, so there was a little bit of like, ‘Damn, I’m kind of actually mad about this a little bit because I know I shouldn’t have said this, but I’m really not that guy.’
I put myself in just such a sh-t spot, you know? Like, ‘You really messed up here, guy.’ If I was that guy, then I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have apologized. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I really was that guy that people were saying about me.”
His good buddy and fellow country singer, HARDY, notes Morgan saw it as a wake-up call; “He realized, ‘I’ve got to get my sh-t together.’ ”
After the incident, Morgan checked himself into rehab and began meeting with black leaders, including 300 Elektra Entertainment CEO Kevin Liles, and then also donated $500,000 to the Black Music Action Coalition after seeing a spike in his album sales and streaming numbers.
While you still see social media comments calling Morgan a racist, it’s safe to say he’s bounced back pretty hard. Morgan recently took home more awards than any other artist at the Billboard Music Awards with 11, reportedly had the highest grossing country tour of the year, and had the most streamed song, all-genre, in 2023 with “Last Night.”
Morgan continues his One Night At A Time tour into 2024 with a handful of new dates kickin’ off in April at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Here are the additional dates added for 2024:
Thurs, April 4 // Indianapolis, IN // Lucas Oil Stadium
Sat, April 20 // Oxford, MS // Vaught-Hemingway Stadium
Thurs, May 2 // Nashville, TN // Nissan Stadium
Thurs, June 20 // Minneapolis, MN // U.S. Bank Stadium
Thurs, June 27 // Denver, CO // Empower Field at Mile High
Thurs, July 11 // Tampa, FL // Raymond James Stadium
Thurs, July 18 // Charlotte, NC // Bank of America Stadium
Thurs, July 25 // Arlington, TX // AT&T Stadium
Thurs, Aug 1 // Kansas City, MO // GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium
Thurs, Aug 8 // Las Vegas, NV // Allegiant Stadium
Watch his first appearance after the video was made public on GMA back in 2021: