8:25
- culture
- July 23, 2021
Morgan Wallen speaks out in 'GMA' interview
Wallen spoke out in an interview that aired on "Good Morning America" Friday.
He added these conversations helped him gain a \"clearer understanding of the weight\" of his words.
Wallen told Strahan that one of the first organizations he spoke with was the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC), an advocacy organization that was created to fight for fair treatment of Black artists and address racism in the music industry.
The country singer claimed he also spoke to record executive Kevin Liles, Eric Hutcherson, executive vice president and chief people and inclusion officer at Universal Music Group and gospel singer BeBe Winans.
\"I've heard some stories in the initial conversations that I had after that -- just how some people are, you know, treated even still today, and I'm just, like, I haven't seen that with my eyes -- that pain or that insignificant feeling or whatever it is that it makes you feel,\" Wallen said on \"GMA.\"
When asked by Strahan if he understood why the slur \"makes Black people so upset,\" Wallen acknowledged his ignorance.
\"I don't know how to put myself in their shoes because I'm not\" he began, \"But I do understand, especially when I say I'm using it playfully or whatever, ignorantly, I understand that that must sound, you know, like, 'He doesn't -- he doesn't understand.'\"
In his February apology video, Wallen admitted he had \"many more things to learn\" but affirmed that he knew he did not want to further \"add to any division.\"
He also stated that the video footage was taken while he was on \"hour 72 of a 72-hour bender\" and he was intending to focus on his sobriety moving forward.
During his \"GMA\" interview, the singer revealed he checked himself into a rehab facility following the scandal.
\"For 30 days, I spent some time out in San Diego, California -- you know, just tryin' to figure it out ... why am I acting this way? Do I have an alcohol problem? Do I have a deeper issue?\" he shared.
Despite widespread backlash from institutions -- and many of his peers -- in the music industry, the singer continued to prevail on the charts long after the February scandal.
His second studio album, \"Dangerous: The Double Album,\" spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and is still No. 1 on Billboard's top country albums chart after 24 weeks in the spot. His album sales also increased dramatically in the days after the footage of the racial slur was released.
\"Before this incident my album was already doing well,\" Wallen said. \"It was already being well-received by critics and by fans. Me and my team noticed that whenever this whole incident happened that there was a spike in my sales. So we tried to calculate what the number of -- how much it actually spiked from this incident.\"
\"We got to a number somewhere around $500,000, and we decided to donate that money to some organizations -- BMAC being the first one,\" he continued.
When asked about people questioning his motivations for choosing to speak out now, Wallen admitted he understands the skepticism.
\"I'm not ever gonna make, you know, everyone happy,\" he said. \"I can only come tell my truth, and -- and that's all I know to do.\"
As for whether or not the country music industry has a race problem? Wallen shared, \"it would seem that way, yeah,\" before adding, \"I haven't really sat and thought about that.\"
ABC News has reached out to BMAC but has not heard back.
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