Morgan Wallen says he’s sober now and tells fans not to defend him after racial slur incident
When country music star Morgan Wallen was caught on film using a racial slur, it seemed like his career was over. But the “More Than My Hometown” singer has not yet fallen from the spotlight, as many of his fans continue to support him and his streams and album sales have actually spiked since the troubling incident.
For his part, Wallen has pledged to “do better” and admitted that he has let many people down, including his parents and his son. In a lengthy video apology posted to his Instagram page, Wallen says that he met with leaders from many Black organizations. The 27-year-old Tennessee native admits that he was at first nervous to meet with these individuals, as he knew that he had done wrong and was afraid of how angry or down on him they might be.
Instead, Wallen says that the leaders and executives of these organizations showed him grace and kindness, sharing impactful stories about racial inequality, helping him to realize that his words really matter, and inspiring him to “dig deeper.” Finally, Wallen shares that he has been sober for nine days, and that even though this is a short time, he can see being sober allows him to make good decisions and be proud of himself.
He also asks his fans to stop defending him.
“I appreciate those who still see something in me and have defended me,” he said. “But for today, please don’t. I was wrong. It’s on me to take ownership for this and I fully accept any penalties I’m facing.”
Wallen ended with scripture from 1 Corinthians 13:11 in the New Testament, which states: “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
The video has been watched over 3 million times, and many people are offering Wallen encouragement and praise for his seemingly heartfelt apology. Fellow male country singers like Tyler Reeve, Scott Stevens, Jon Langston, Sean Stemaly and Hardy have publicly offered their support for Wallen.
However, female Americana singers like Maren Morris and Kelsey Ballerini aren’t as quick to give a pass to the bad boy of country music. They both agreed on Twitter that this kind of behavior would never be accepted from a female artist.
Both musicians aired their opinions in response to a tweet from songwriter and producer Bonnie J. Baker.
Warning: The tweet below contains profanity.
the truth is the truth. https://t.co/HocuKJraWa
— Kelsea Ballerini (@KelseaBallerini) February 3, 2021
Morris pointed out that a female artist who did this would quickly become persona non grata:
yup. we’d be dropped, endorsements lost, social pariahs to music row…
— MAREN MORRIS (@MarenMorris) February 3, 2021
And they also both agreed that this was not Wallen’s first use of the word and the music industry was more than aware of this hateful past. Morris pointed out that Nashville continues to have a serious racism problem, even in the music world:
It actually IS representative of our town because this isn’t his first “scuffle” and he just demolished a huge streaming record last month regardless. We all know it wasn’t his first time using that word. We keep them rich and protected at all costs with no recourse.
— MAREN MORRIS (@MarenMorris) February 3, 2021