Two years after he was caught on camera saying the n-word, country music megastar Morgan Wallen wants fans to know that “he will never make an excuse” for using the slur because “he is really not that guy.” It’s an interesting conundrum for the guy who really did use that word and nearly blew up his burgeoning, multi-million-dollar career. Luckily for him, his casual racism seemingly helped him sell more records because we live in hell. Nevertheless, in a new interview with Billboard, Wallen, who is speaking about the incident for the first time in two years and won 11 Billboard Music Awards in 2023, says there’s no excuse for his actions. However, he argues that if he were actually a racist, he “wouldn’t have cared” and “wouldn’t have apologized” since there has never, ever (not once) been an insincere public apology made by a celebrity.
“There’s no excuse. I’ve never made an excuse. I never will make an excuse,” Wallen said. “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.”
Per Variety, following his dalliance with racial epithets, Wallen met with numerous Black leaders in the entertainment business as part of his ongoing education “to learn and try to be better.”
“I think, for me, in my heart, I was never that guy that people were portraying me to be, so there was a little bit of like, ‘Damn, I’m kind of actually mad about this a little bit because I know I shouldn’t have said this, but I’m really not that guy,’” He continued. “I put myself in just such a shit spot, you know? Like, ‘You really messed up here, guy.’ If I was that guy, then I wouldn’t have cared. I wouldn’t have apologized. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I really was that guy that people were saying about me.”
Of course, while Wallen claims he “was never that guy that people were portraying me to be,” he was the guy who used the n-word, which probably led people to believe he’s used it before. After all, if he was comfortable enough using the slur that it could be caught on camera, it’s likely that it was a part of his vocabulary. It’s that level of breeziness Wallen brought to saying the n-word that led people to believe he was, in fact, “that guy.” So yeah, no excuses, but that wasn’t the real him.