Darius Rucker is calling on people to forgive Morgan Wallen for his past use of racial slurs.
The 58-year-old musician talks to the Rolling Stone Music Now podcast on Tuesday about the fallout from the 2021 scandal in which Wallen, 31, was caught on camera by a neighbor using a racial slur in a clip that aired on TMZ.
The Hootie & the Blowfish singer said Tuesday that he feels like “Morgan has become a better person since then” and that he has shown growth as a person in the past three years since the incident.
“I’ve known Morgan for a long time,” the Charleston, South Carolina, resident said. “Since everything that’s happened, Morgan has been trying to better himself and be a better person and see the world in a much better, better way.”
Wallen immediately faced professional consequences after the 2021 incident: his recording contract with Big Loud Records was suspended and music organizations such as CMT, iHeart Media, SiriusXM and Pandora distanced themselves from the artist and his material in the period afterward.
Darius Rucker, 58, is calling on people to forgive Morgan Wallen, 31, for his past use of racial slurs. Rucker was photographed in NYC last month on the Fox Business Network
Wallen has been slowly rebuilding his career since the incident, making his first major public appearance at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, where he accepted the award for Best Male Country Artist.
At the May 2022 ceremony, Wallen was joined by host Sean “Diddy” Combs, who said he wanted to use the opportunity to “undo what was canceled.” (Combs himself has been in a career slump in recent months following a series of lawsuits, law enforcement raids on his property and the surfacing of video of him violently attacking his ex-girlfriend Cassie.)
Wallen’s hit Dangerous: The Double Album won Album of the Year at the Academy of Country Music Awards in March 2022.
Rucker — known for hits including Hold My Hand, Only Wanna Be with You and Let Her Cry — told Rolling Stone that he doesn’t think Wallen has been “forgiven” by the music industry for the 2021 incident, despite a number 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 “still isn’t open to CMAs and ACMs” amid the fallout from the racial slur scandal.
“They can say whatever they want, but the fact that Morgan Wallen isn’t nominated for Entertainer of the Year and stuff like that is ridiculous,” Rucker said. (Wallen was nominated for Entertainer of the Year in April, with Lainey Wilson taking home the honor.)
Rucker — a father of three: daughter Carolyn, 29, with ex Elizabeth Ann Phillips; daughter Daniella, 23, and son Jack, 19, with ex-wife Beth — pointed out that Wallen continues to be commercially successful, noting that “nobody sells more tickets than Morgan.”
In an online clip released after the 2021 video circulated, Wallen expressed remorse for his actions and said he hoped his mistakes could be a lesson to other people.
Rucker, a three-time Grammy winner who has reinvented himself as a country singer in recent years, said Wallen is “still not looking for CMAs and ACMs” amid 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 top of a six-story bar. Pictured in Nashville in May
“The video you saw showed me on a drinking binge in the 72nd hour, and I’m not proud of that either,” said Wallen, who reportedly spent time in a rehabilitation center after the clip was released.
He added: “Our actions matter. Our words matter. And I want to encourage everyone watching to please learn from my mistake. There is no reason to minimize what I did.”
Wallen was arrested in Nashville last April after he was accused of throwing a chair off the top of a six-story establishment called Chief’s Bar.
He was subsequently charged with three counts of reckless endangerment and one count of a breach of the peace.
“I didn’t feel comfortable enough to publicly check out until I made amends with some people,” Wallen said on social media after the arrest. “I have reached out to the Nashville Police Department, my family, and the good people at Chief’s. I am not proud of my behavior and I accept responsibility.”