On Friday, ABCs Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan interviewed country music star Morgan Wallen , who was harshly criticized after a video emerged of …
On Friday, ABCs Good Morning America co-host Michael Strahan interviewed country music star Morgan Wallen, who was harshly criticized after a video emerged of him in February using the n-word, prompting Wallen to be dropped by his talent agency and have his music removed from major music platforms. Although Wallen again expressed contrition, (he had already issued a video apologizing), and revealed he and his group had tried to ascertain how much extra money they had made after his newest album soared after the entire series of incidents and then pledged $500,000 to organizations dealing with racism, Strahan used the interview to accuse country music world of being racist, citing Wallen emerging from the scandal to become the best-selling artist of the year so far and opining, “And a lot of people look at that, as just you know, it says a lot about country music and the race situation in country music.” “Wallen was dropped by his talent agency and his music was removed from platforms such as SiriusXM and Pandora after a video of an intoxicated Wallen calling a friend a ‘p****-a** n*****’ appeared online in February. Wallen has since apologized for using the slur, which happened “on hour 72 of a bender” late at night in Nashville,” The Daily Wire reported. “Wallen was banned at appearing at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards over the incident. He was not barred from being nominated for major awards, however, since nominations are tied to his position on Billboard charts as well as his music sales and streams on online platforms.” In a clip from the interview, Strahan said to Wallen, “There’s going to be a lot of people who are going to watch this and say, ‘He’s only sitting down because he wants to clean up his image; it’s all a performance’ – so what do you say to that?” Wallen replied, “I understand that. I understand that, y’know, I’m not ever going to make everyone happy, but man, I can only come tell my truth and that’s all I know to do.” Strahan asked Wallen, “When did you realize that what you had done was a big deal?” “My manager called me probably two hours before the video came out, he was like, ‘Are you sitting down?’” Wallen answered. “No one’s ever called me and said that before.… I went to — one of my friends has a house out in the middle of nowhere. Just sittin’ in that, sittin’ in that house tryin’ to figure out what I was supposed to do.
