Country music star Morgan Wallen reveals he checked into rehab after being caught on tape drunkenly calling his friend the N-word as Michael Strahan confronts him saying ‘I’ve been called it, it doesn’t feel good’
- Wallen told GMA’s Michael Strahan he checked into rehab after the scandal
- Wallen, 28, was filmed in February calling one of his friends the ‘N-word’
- It was outside his home in Nashville and he was telling his friend’s girlfriend to take care of him because they were all drunk, saying: ‘Take care of this n****r’
- Wallen said he made the remark ‘ignorantly’ during a weekend of ‘hard partying’
- He said it’s not a word he uses ‘frequently’ but did ‘playfully’ around his friends
- The video appears to have been filmed by a neighbor and was given to the press
- Wallen was suspended by his recording label and banned from music awards
- His album sales soared – which many said showed that country music was a racist industry
- He donated $500,000 to black-owned organizations after the scandal
Country music singer Morgan Wallen revealed on Friday that he checked himself into rehab to ‘find out if he had a drinking problem’ after being caught on tape drunkenly calling a friend the N-word earlier this year.
The 28-year-old singer was banned by music awards and boycotted by the industry in February after video emerged of him yelling to a friend’s girlfriend to ‘take care of this n****r’. It’s unclear if the friend in question is black or white.
After the scandal, Wallen was banned by 1,500 radio stations, suspended by his record label, boycotted by awards shows but his album sales soared.
In an interview with Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan on Friday, Wallen said that he made the comment ‘ignorantly’ and ‘playfully’ while ‘partying hard’ with friends who were visiting him at his home in Nashville.
‘I had some long time friends in town and we had been partying all weekend. We just figured we’d go hard. I was around some of my friends and we say dumb stuff together… in our minds it’s playful.
‘It sounds ignorant to say but it’s really where it came from… I wouldn’t say [I say it] frequently. It was just around this certain group of friends. We were all clearly drunk and I was asking his girlfriend to take care of him.’
In an interview with Good Morning America’s Michael Strahan on Friday, Wallen said that he made the comment ‘ignorantly’ and ‘playfully’ while ‘partying hard’ with friends who were visiting him at his home in Nashville.
Strahan asked him whether or not he understood properly the background of the slur, or why it was so painful
The 28-year-old singer was banned by music awards and boycotted by the industry in February after video emerged of him yelling to a friend’s girlfriend to ‘take care of this n****r’. It’s unclear if the friend in question is black or white
‘I wasn’t meaning it in a derogatory way at all,’ he said.
The video appears to have been filmed by a neighbor. It was given to the media in February and Wallen was banned from country music awards and slammed by others in the industry.
Afterwards, Wallen said he spent 30 days in a San Diego rehab facility.
‘I went and checked myself into rehab for 30 days. I spent some time out in San Diego just trying to figure out if I have an alcohol problem or a deeper issue.’
The scandal only boosted his career.
His album sales soared afterwards which many said proved racism was prevalent among country music singers and fans.
Wallen said he and his manager calculated that the scandal boosted his album sales by $500,000 and that he donated the money to black organizations.
He also said he’d had ‘meaningful’ conversations with such organizations to understand the issue.
Strahan asked him whether or not he understood properly the background of the slur, or why it was so painful.
‘It’s a word… I’ve been called it. It makes you mad, angry – not good at all.
‘Do you understand why it makes black people so upset?’ he asked, adding that it was used by slave owners and often abusers before beating or murdering black people in hate crimes.
‘I don’t know how to put myself in their shoes… and I do understand it must sound like I don’t understand when I say I used it playfully and am ignorant,’ he said.
Asked if he thinks there is a racism problem in the country music industry, he said: ‘It would seem that way. I haven’t really thought about that.’
After the video emerged, Wallen was suspended by his recording label and he was banned from music industry events but the sales of his album soared.
1500 radio stations dropped his music.
‘Before this incident my album was already doing well but me and my team noticed there was a spike in my sales. We tried to calculate what the number of how much it spiked, from this incident, and we got to a number of $500,000 and we decided to donate that to some organizations,’ he said.
Wallen, in the aftermath of the scandal in February, released an apology video and told his fans not to defend him.
Wallen’s label Big Loud suspended him after the scandal but they didn’t cancel him. It’s unclear what the status of his contract is
Wallen’s album sales soared after the scandal and he is back performing on the road