Back in July, embattled country singer Morgan Wallen appeared on Good Morning America to talk about the now-infamous video of him uttering a racial slur. During that interview, Wallen pledged to donate a significant amount of money to Black-led groups — the same figure he reportedly earned from the spike in album sales that occurred after the video surfaced.
“Before this incident, my album was already doing well; it was already being well-received by critics and by fans,” he told GMA host Michael Strahan at the time. “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 [the Black Music Action Coalition] being the first one.”
Rolling Stone has released a new report, however, outlining the ways Wallen has apparently not kept his promise. BMAC even criticized Wallen in a statement, saying that they were “disappointed that Morgan has not used his platform to support any anti-racism endeavors.” While they reportedly did receive some money from Wallen, they said the $500,000 figure “seems exceptionally misleading.”
Meanwhile, the magazine reached out to more than 50 other Black-led or Black-founded charities, spanning from local to national. None of received any money from Wallen, though Rolling Stone added a caveat that donations could have been made anonymously.
Wallen was dropped by his label shortly after the incriminating footage of Wallen using the racial slur popped up back in February. When Strahan asked what made him think the word was ever appropriate for him to use, Wallen said after a pause, “I’m not sure. I think I was just ignorant about it. I don’t think I sat down and was like, ‘Hey, is this right or is this wrong?'”
