It’s no secret that Morgan Wallen considers Eric Church his personal hero.
He even called Eric the “GOAT” before performing a cover of “Homeboy” at a show in Texas early last year.
And while I don’t think Eric would go as far as to call Morgan the GOAT (I mean, come on… why would he?), the respect appears to be mutual. In a recent interview, Eric praised Morgan for his authenticity:
“He’s real damn good and he’s authentic… that’s the key. Morgan is not trying to be somebody else. He’s just doing him. It’s refreshing to see and hear.”
However, in light of Morgan recent n-bomb controversy, Eric says in a new Billboard cover-story that he sent Morgan a message saying to “hang in there” and that he was praying for him:
“That was indefensible. I was heartbroken when it happened.
I think Morgan’s trying to work on that and on himself. And I hope he does.”
Of course, Morgan has been punished for his actions. The industry quickly responded by banning him from most radio stations, most awards shows, he was suspended by his label, dropped by his booking agent. Spotify and Apple Music removed him from certain playlists (not all of them).
However, that didn’t stop his music from charting. In fact, his recently released double album Dangerous (which features a song written by Church) has been the #1 album in country music for the past 11 weeks, and was the number one album on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart for 10 straight weeks. Only a handful of country albums have ever accomplished that many weeks on the chart in total, let alone consecutively.
Morgan has also since apologized for the incident and has promised to do better, however it remains to be seen what will happen once tours start opening back up. Jason Aldean recently expressed his desire to see Morgan come back “sooner rather than later.”
As of right now, Morgan is set to headline multiple Country Thunder festivals, as well as Wisconsin’s Country Jam and Kansas’ Country Stampede.
Chief making the cover… gotta love it.
