NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Nation music star Morgan Wallen denied to police that he threw a chair off a Nashville honky-tonk bar roof earlier than and after he was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment in 2024, police video obtained by The Related Press exhibits.
Roughly two weeks after his April 2024 arrest, Wallen commented on social media: “I’m not proud of my behavior, and I accept responsibility” and stated he “made amends” with Nashville regulation enforcement and others.
Then in December, he pleaded responsible to 2 counts.
The Metro Nashville Police Division launched the footage of Wallen’s arrest, captured by a number of officers’ physique and cruiser cameras, in response to a public information request from the AP.
A beforehand launched arrest affidavit didn’t get into the small print of what Wallen instructed officers.
A damaged chair by Chief’s
A police automobile digital camera exhibits two officers, who had been standing outdoors, react to one thing apparently falling from above on a late Sunday evening. And one officer’s physique digital camera video begins with a shot of a damaged chair within the street close to his parked police cruiser, near Chief’s on Broadway, within the metropolis’s leisure district.
Then, as Wallen and his bodyguard group come right down to the principle entrance on Broadway, one of many males with Wallen is shouting, “He didn’t see anything. You don’t have witnesses, you are accusing!”
“He didn’t throw nothing, he didn’t throw nothing,” the bodyguard continues, and accuses two bar staff of “being aggressive.”
When an officer asks Wallen what occurred, the musician replies, “I don’t know.”
He later tells one other officer, “We’ve not tried to cause no problems, man. I don’t know what they are — I don’t know why.”
That officer stated police had been determining what occurred after a chair got here flying off the roof and landed by his patrol automobile. Wallen replied, “As you should.”
Calling Eric Church
At one level, Wallen is on his cellphone, then factors it on the officer and says, “Eric Church is on the phone.” Church, one other nation star, co-owns Chief’s. Through the name, Wallen had used an expletive to explain the officers he stated had been “trying to take me to jail outside of your (expletive) bar.”
Church, who can’t be heard on the police recording, advisable to the officer that Wallen wait in a non-public house as an alternative of standing on the general public sidewalk, stated a consultant for Church.
The officer responds: “It’s not really something we can do. Law enforcement have to enforce the laws. Figure out what happened. We’ve got a supervisor coming to the scene. Gotta treat it like we would with anybody else.”
Representatives for Wallen didn’t reply to requests for remark.
Again within the bar, police had been in an workplace watching safety footage from the roof, physique digital camera footage exhibits. The safety video was not clear from the officers’ physique cameras and a police spokesperson stated there was no safety digital camera footage from the bar within the case recordsdata.
The officers return outdoors and a sergeant, who says he watched safety video of Wallen throwing a chair off the roof, handcuffs him.
One other officer talks to 2 witnesses. One, referring to the chair, says she noticed Wallen “lift it up and throw it off” and chuckle.
All through the hour-and-a-half ordeal, Wallen makes apologetic feedback to officers with out explicitly admitting to something, together with: “I truly didn’t mean no harm,” “Sorry to cause problems, I didn’t mean to,” and “God damn it, I am sorry man.”
“He didn’t admit to it, but we got him on camera doing it,” one sergeant says after Wallen was cuffed, additionally noting police had witness statements.
John Shearer by way of Getty Photos
Some followers took discover as Wallen stood surrounded by police in Nashville’s busy vacationer hub. One yells, “We love you Morgan!” As soon as Wallen is at the back of the police automobile, he says to the officer, “Get us out of here,” noting that individuals had been videotaping him.
Born and raised in Sneedville, Tennessee, the two-time Grammy nominee is without doubt one of the greatest names in modern common music, beloved for his earworm hooks and distinctive mixture of bro nation, dirt-rock and sure hallmarks of hip-hop. 2023′s “One Thing at a Time” broke Garth Brooks’ file for longest working No. 1 nation album, and this 12 months’s “I’m The Problem” spent 12 weeks at No. 1.
Wallen’s profession has been marked by a number of different controversies, together with a 2020 arrest on public intoxication and disorderly conduct expenses after being kicked out of Child Rock’s bar in downtown Nashville. In 2021, after a video surfaced of him utilizing a racial slur, he was disqualified or restricted from a number of award exhibits and obtained no Grammy nominations for his massively common “Dangerous: The Double Album.”
A Thomas Rhett sing-along
Wallen was talkative within the cruiser, the footage exhibits, saying, “I ain’t done nothing wrong,” and urgent the officer for his favourite nation musicians.
“I can tell you my top three right now,” the officer replies. “You’re honestly one of them.” Considered one of Wallen’s songs with Thomas Rhett comes on from the officer’s playlist.
“This is me and Thomas Rhett! Turn it up. That’s me and TR! That’s me right there,” Wallen says, earlier than singing a few the phrases from the track.
“TR is one of the best dudes in the world. He would definitely not be getting arrested,” Wallen provides.
Wallen pleaded responsible in December 2024 to 2 misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to spend seven days in a DUI schooling middle and be underneath supervised probation for 2 years.
When the choose requested how he would plead, he stated, “Conditionally guilty.” His lawyer has stated the fees might be eligible for dismissal and expungement after he completes probation.
Wallen’s personal Nashville honky tonk, not removed from Chief’s, opened lower than two months after his arrest.
Related Press Music Author Maria Sherman contributed to this story from New York.
