Morgan Wallen Pledged to Donate $500K to Black-Led Groups to Atone for Using a Racial Slur. He Reportedly Has a Lot More Checks to Write
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Morgan Wallen vowed to donate $500,000 to Black-led organizations and charities in an effort to atone for using a racial slur, but Rolling Stone has reported that the money is “largely M.I.A.”
Five months after TMZ leaked a video showing the country singer calling one of his friends the N-word, Wallen joined the Good Morning America team to highlight the anti-racism work he was doing to redeem himself.
“Before this incident, my album was already doing well; it was already being well-received by critics and by fans,” he told host Michael Strahan. “Me and my team noticed that whenever this whole incident happened, that there was a spike in my sales. So we tried to calculate … how much it had 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.”
In response to Wallen’s claim that he would be donating around half a million dollars, the Black Music Action Coalition (BMAC) has deemed that number “exceptionally misleading.”
The organization confirmed that they received $165,000 from Wallen in April 2021, adding that “while we are appreciative of the money, which has been used to make grants directly to Black musicians through our Covid Emergency Relief Fund, we remain disappointed that Morgan has not used his platform to support any anti-racism endeavors.”
In an attempt to find the other organizations that received donations from Wallen, Rolling Stone “reached out to 56 other state, regional and national Black-led or Black-founded charities.”
According to the magazine, none of those 56 Black-led groups reported receiving any money from Wallen.
“While it’s possible Wallen made donations anonymously, it would signal an abrupt about-face to his previous, conspicuous public mea culpas, financial declarations, and charitable endeavors,” wrote Rolling Stone’s Jason Newman.
The reporter went on to note that Wallen has publicly performed at several charity events and benefits since the racial-slur controversy, and has launched a foundation to “help children, adolescents, and teenagers find families that can provide warm, loving homes that can rebuild their confidence, self-belief, and to feel forever loved, with a forever family.”
Despite the controversy, Wallen won three top honors at the 2021 Billboard Music Awards, his song “Sand in My Boots,” sits at No. 26 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart, and he has announced several headlining concerts this year.
The country singer also announced a headlining appearance at Country Thunder at Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee, which has been billed as “Morgan Wallen’s Country Thunder Takeover.”
