Andrew Nelles / Tennessean.com, Nashville Tennessean via Imagn Content Services, LLC

Morgan Wallen 'was just ignorant' when caught saying racial slur in February

By Megan Armstrong | Last updated 7/23/21

Morgan Wallen's first interview since this TMZ video from February exposed him freely using the N-word was with Michael Strahan on Good Morning America this morning (July 23).

The disgraced country singer explained that his manager had called him and asked if he was sitting down before breaking the news that TMZ would be releasing the video two hours from then. Wallen then escaped to one of his friend's houses "out in the middle of nowhere" to try and "figure out what it is I'm supposed to do."

"I don't think it just happened," Wallen told Strahan, in response to where referring to someone as a racial slur came from. "I was around some of my friends, and you know, we just say dumb stuff together. It was—in our minds, it's playful. I don't know ... that sounds ignorant, but that's really where it came from. And it's wrong."

The 28-year-old confirmed that he hadn't "frequently" used the N-word amongst friends, but he had certainly used it before when "around this certain group of friends."

"I think I was just ignorant about it," Wallen added. "I don't think I sat down and was, like, 'Hey, is this right or is this wrong?'"

The chart-topper previously addressed his behavior twice before, first in a video eight days after the video was made public:

And again through a handwritten letter posted in mid-April:

pic.twitter.com/3vRJHQVfxf
— morgan wallen (@MorganWallen) April 13, 2021

Wallen's contract had been suspended by his record label in the immediate aftermath. He was additionally excluded from this year's Billboard Music Awards as well as dubbed ineligible for solo honors at the CMA Country Music Awards. His four-month radio ban was lifted last month.

"I went and checked myself into rehab," Wallen revealed to Strahan. "And for 30 days, I spent some time out in San Diego, California, just trying to figure it out. Why am I acting this way? Do I have an alcohol problem? Do I have a deeper issue?"

The Tennessee native continued: "Before this incident, my album [Dangerous] was already doing well. 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, and we got a number somewhere around $500,000, and we decided to donate that money to some organizations—[Black Music Action Coalition] being the first one."

Watch the full GMA piece below.