Morgan Wallen has returned to the stage at Kid Rock‘s Nashville bar, marking his first performance since a racial scandal saw him facing a ban from radio stations across the U.S.
The 28-year-old country singer performed a selection of his hits to a packed crowd at Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk & Steakhouse bar in Nashville on Wednesday evening (May 19).
Wallen reportedly told fans he might be a “little rusty” before beginning his performance, which came nearly three months since he was recorded on video screaming the N-word at a friend after a drunken night out.
Walked into kid rocks and immediately saw Morgan Wallen. I’m home pic.twitter.com/tlCS7AZZdp
— Riley O'Brien (@Ri_S_OB) May 20, 2021
He was dropped by his label Big Loud in February after the video surfaced, while radio stations across America removed his music from their playlists.
Wallen issued an apology after the clip was shared, saying: “I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back.
“There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologise for using the word. I promise to do better.
“I was wrong. It’s on me, and I fully accept any penalties I’m facing. The timing of my return is solely upon me and the work I put in,” he said.
Wallen previously cancelled all of his summer tour dates to extend personal leave.
The country singer announced the tour cancellations in a lengthy handwritten note posted to Instagram last month.
In the note, he thanked fans for their support of his record ‘Dangerous: The Double Album’, which spent its first ten weeks atop the Billboard 200 – the first country album ever to do so.
As Billboard reports, the only other country set to tally its first six weeks at Number One was Garth Brooks’ ‘The Chase’ in 1992. And the last album to spend seven weeks in a row at Number One – regardless of genre – was Drake’s ‘Views’ in 2016.
Wallen then said he had recently taken a couple of months off music and “really worked on myself”.
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