Darius Rucker calls on people to forgive Morgan Wallen for his past use of racist slurs.
The 58-year-old musician spoke on the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast on Tuesday about the fallout from the 2021 scandal in which Wallen, 31, was caught on a neighbor’s camera using a racial slur in a clip posted on TMZ.
The Hootie & the Blowfish singer said Tuesday that he felt “Morgan has become a better person since then” and has shown personal growth in the more than three years since the incident.
“I’ve known Morgan for a long time,” said the Charleston, South Carolina native. “Since all this happened, Morgan has really tried to better himself, become a better person and see the world in a much better, brighter way.”
Wallen faced immediate professional consequences following the incident in 2021, as his record deal with Big Loud Records was suspended, while music industry organizations such as CMT, iHeart Media, SiriusXM and Pandora distanced themselves from the musician and his material in the period that followed.
Darius Rucker, 58, is urging people to forgive Morgan Wallen, 31, for his past use of racist slurs. Rucker was photographed in New York last month while appearing on the Fox Business Network.
After this incident, Wallen slowly rebuilt his career and made his first major public appearance at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, where he won the award for Best Male Country Artist.
At the May 2022 ceremony, Wallen received support from host Sean “Diddy” Combs, who said he hoped to use the opportunity to “resurrect the deposed.” (Combs himself has been in a career crisis in recent months after suffering a series of lawsuits, police raiding his property, and a video surfacing of him violently attacking his ex-girlfriend Cassie.)
Wallen’s hit record “Dangerous: The Double Album” won Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in March 2022.
Rucker – whose hits include Hold My Hand, Only Wanna Be with You and Let Her Cry – told Rolling Stone he believes Wallen is “unforgiven” by the music industry for the incident in 2021, despite a string of commercial and critical successes.
Rucker, a three-time Grammy winner who has reinvented himself as a country singer in recent years, pointed out that Wallen is “still not in contention for the CMAs and ACMs” given the fallout from the racial slur scandal.
“They can say what they want, but the fact that Morgan Wallen isn’t nominated for Entertainer of the Year and things like that is crazy,” Rucker said. (Wallen was announced as a nominee for Entertainer of the Year in April, with Lainey Wilson winning the award.)
Rucker, who is the father of three children – 29-year-old daughter Carolyn with his ex-wife Elizabeth Ann Phillips, 23-year-old daughter Daniella and 19-year-old son Jack with his ex-wife Beth – stressed that Wallen continues to be commercially successful, adding: “Nobody sells more tickets than Morgan.”
In an online clip posted as the 2021 video went viral, Wallen expressed remorse for his actions and said he hoped his mistakes could serve as a lesson to others.
Rucker, a three-time Grammy winner who has reinvented himself as a country singer in recent years, said Wallen is “still not in the running for CMAs and ACMs” given the fallout from the 2021 scandal. Pictured in Nashville in June
Wallen was arrested in Nashville last April after being accused of throwing a chair off the roof of a six-story bar. Pictured in Nashville in May
“The video you saw shows me in the 72nd hour of a drinking binge and I’m not proud of that either,” said Wallen, who had to endure a stay in a rehabilitation facility after the clip was distributed.
He added: “Our actions matter. Our words matter. And I want to encourage everyone watching to learn from my mistake. There is no reason to downplay what I did.”
Wallen was arrested in Nashville last April after being accused of throwing a chair from the roof of a six-story establishment called Chief’s Bar.
He was subsequently charged with three counts of reckless endangerment and one count of disturbing the peace.
“I didn’t feel comfortable coming out publicly until I made amends with some people,” Wallen said on social media after his arrest. “I have been in contact with Nashville law enforcement, my family and the good people at Chief’s. I am not proud of my actions and I take responsibility.”
