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If you think you’ve had a wild few years since 2020, try on the personal and professional ups and downs of country singer Morgan Wallen for size. Since 2020, Wallen has enjoyed chart-topping album sales and several hit singles — all amid public controversy.
The Tennessee superstar’s career was threatened by several scandals, including an arrest for public drunkenness when he was 86’d from Kid Rock‘s Nashville bar in 2020, and then Wallen was photographed sans mask around that same time, at the height of COVID-19 prevention measures.
One year later, Wallen was once more in the headlines for all the wrong reasons when TMZ shared a video of the singer using a racial slur.
Wallen’s racial slur fallout
On top of other scandals — which alone caused Morgan Wallen’s SNL appearance to be canceled and the loss of a country music festival headline slot for the musician. For a time, Wallen’s racial slur video seemed like it might end once and for all the Nashville songwriter’s meteoric rise in country music.
As Business Insider points out, in the aftermath of TMZ’s report, Wallen tried to make things right, saying,
“… There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.”
Still, in this period, Wallen’s music was pulled from country radio, his label suspended him, and he was banned from performing at the 2021 American Music Awards, among other consequences.
Wallen topped the charts in 2023
Despite the racial slur incident and the ensuing damage it caused to his career in some sectors of public opinion, Morgan Wallen emerged triumphant in 2023 with a hit single, Last Night, astronomic streaming numbers in general, and a best-selling record, One Thing at a Time. He also performed at the 2023 Billboard Music Awards.
Wallen did more than apologize for using the racial slur exposed by TMZ in 2021. To make amends, Wallen met with Black community leaders and donated money to social and racial justice organizations, like The National Museum of African American Music, according to Variety.
In Oct. 2023, Wallen opened up to Billboard about what he learned through the experience. “There’s no excuse” for using the slur, he said. “I’ve never made an excuse. I never will make an excuse.”
Wallen continued, “I’ve talked to a lot of people, heard stories [about] things that I would have never thought about because I wasn’t the one going through it.” In the future, Wallen added, he’d “learn and try to be better” (via Variety).