Morgan Wallen

Morgan Cole Wallen (born May 13, 1993) is an American country pop singer from Sneedville, Tennessee. He competed in the sixth season of The Voice. After being eliminated in the playoffs of the sixth season, he signed to Panacea Records, releasing his debut extended play: Stand Alone (2015). Later in 2016, Wallen signed to Big Loud and later released his debut studio album: If I Know Me (2018). The album included four singles: "The Way I Talk", "Up Down" (featuring Florida Georgia Line), "Whiskey Glasses", and "Chasin' You". If I Know Me would reach the top-position on the Billboard Top Country Albums chart after a record-breaking 114 weeks.
Wallen's second studio album: Dangerous: The Double Album (2021) was an immediate commercial success, spending its first seven weeks atop the Billboard 200 chart. The album spent the three following weeks at number one, thus spending its first ten weeks atop the chart. Dangerous: The Double Album included four singles: "More Than My Hometown", "7 Summers", "Sand in My Boots", and "Wasted on You", as well as various promotional singles. Wallen's third studio album: One Thing at a Time (2023), spent its first 12 weeks atop the Billboard 200, and topped the Billboard 200 for seven more non-consecutive weeks throughout 2023 and 2024, thus spending 19 non-consecutive weeks atop the chart. All 36 tracks from the album charted on the Billboard Hot 100 simultaneously, breaking the record set by Drake (27), Wallen additionally charted five tracks in the top-ten of the chart. The album spawned eight singles: "You Proof", "Thought You Should Know", "Last Night", the title track, "Everything I Love", "Thinkin' Bout Me", "Man Made a Bar" (featuring Eric Church), and "Cowgirls" (featuring Ernest). The single "Last Night" peaked atop the Billboard Hot 100, marking Wallen's first number-one single on the respective chart, spent sixteen non-consecutive weeks atop the chart throughout 2023, and topped the 2023 year-end chart.
Wallen has received several accolades, including an Academy of Country Music Award, fourteen Billboard Music Awards, and won Entertainer of the Year at the 58th Annual Country Music Association Awards. Aside from his various accolades, Wallen holds multiple Billboard chart records, Wallen is the only artist to have two albums spend at-least 100 weeks in the top-ten of the Billboard 200, the only artist to have two (or even one) albums spend at-least 10 first-weeks atop the Billboard 200, the artist with the most weeks at number-one on the Top Country Albums chart (176), and his single "You Proof" is the longest-running Billboard Country Airplay number-one of all time, with ten non-consecutive weeks atop the chart.
Morgan Cole Wallen was born on May 13, 1993, in Sneedville, Tennessee, to Tommy and Lesli Wallen. Tommy served for a time as a local church pastor, while Lesli worked as a teacher. In his teens, the family moved south to Knox County, where he graduated from Gibbs High School. He was a pitcher and shortstop for the school's baseball team, and hoped to continue in college, but tore his ulnar collateral ligament his senior year.
As a child, Wallen took piano and violin lessons. He was raised on a diverse musical playlist, with his father exposing him to classic rock mainstays. In his teens, he gravitated towards bands like Breaking Benjamin and Nickelback, as well as rappers like Lil Wayne. Wallen has characterized his early adulthood as adrift; he worked in landscaping after high school and was disappointed by his inability to continue his baseball career. He re-approached his interest in music and began learning guitar. He had grown to love country music, especially artists like Keith Whitley and Eric Church, and he modeled his sound after that lineage.
In 2014, Wallen competed on season 6 of the music competition program The Voice. He auditioned with the song "Collide" by Howie Day. Judges Shakira and Usher complimented his stylings, and Wallen joined Usher's team. He was later taken by Adam Levine's team after his second round, and later eliminated during the playoffs. Wallen later said of his experience on the show, "Some things in life are out of your control. Being the best you can be isn't. I didn't feel like I was the best I could have been. So I practiced harder". The Voice was instrumental in raising Wallen's profile, and he began to establish connections in the music industry.
While in California to appear on The Voice, Wallen began working with Sergio Sanchez of Atom Smash, a vocal coach on the program. Wallen relocated to Nashville to further his career, and he and Sanchez started a temporary band: Morgan Wallen & Them Shadows. Sanchez introduced Wallen to Bill Ray and Paul Trust of Panacea Records. In 2015, Wallen signed to Panacea Records where he was joined by Dominic Frost on guitar and released the Stand Alone (EP) on August 24, 2015. "Spin You Around" was Wallen's debut single under Panacea Records; it was later certified double platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in 2021.
In 2015, Wallen's manager, Dirk Hemsath of Working Group Artist Management, sent a demo of Wallen to record executive Seth England, who had Wallen audition for Big Loud, an independent record label. They signed Wallen to the label and the publishing company, who began pairing his songs with other artists. That year, he released his debut single "The Way I Talk"; his first music video for the song followed in 2017. Wallen co-wrote A Thousand Horses' single "Preachin' to the Choir", Dallas Smith's "The Fall", as well as Jason Aldean's "You Make It Easy" with Florida Georgia Line's Tyler Hubbard, Brian Kelley, and Jordan Schmidt. He joined Florida Georgia Line on their Dig Your Roots Tour. He collaborated with the group on the single "Up Down", his first song to reach the top five of Billboard's Hot Country Songs chart.
At the outset of his career, Wallen underwent a personal stylistic shift, adopting a distinctive mullet and a look that Kelefa Sanneh, profiling Wallen's rise in a piece for The New Yorker, described as "Everyman rock star" and "not just a singer but a character". Wallen had decided to adopt the retro hairdo after seeing a younger photo of his father with the cut. Wallen's debut studio album, If I Know Me, was released on April 27, 2018, with its third single, "Whiskey Glasses", becoming his biggest success yet. The song reached the top spot on both the Hot Country Songs and Country Airplay charts; it also marked his first top 40 appearance on the all-genre Hot 100 ranking, where it placed at number 17. It was Billboard's 2019 top Hot Country song and Top Country Airplay song. Sanneh characterized "Whiskey Glasses" as his signature song and a "perfectly constructed ode to a woman and a drink, lost and found, respectively". In 2019, Wallen joined Florida Georgia Line on their Can't Say I Ain't Country Tour. His next single, "Chasin' You", was serviced to radio in July 2019 and peaked at number two on the Hot Country Songs chart; like its predecessor, it captured the top spot on the overall year-end tally for 2020. In August 2020, If I Know Me reached No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart after a record-breaking 114 weeks.
Wallen's profile continued to rise, with a growing following on platforms such as TikTok, and he developed into an unwitting sex symbol. Wallen appeared on the cover of Billboard, whose headline read: "Is Morgan Wallen Country's Next Global Star?" At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Wallen found himself with more time to write and record material, which developed into his sophomore album, the double-disc Dangerous: The Double Album (2021), which showcases a mix of country and R&B/pop balladry. Dangerous was an immediate blockbuster: it debuted atop the US Billboard 200 and the Canadian Albums Chart; it would remain atop the Canadian chart for four consecutive weeks, and the US chart for six consecutive weeks, marking the first new album from a country artist to do that since Garth Brooks' The Chase in 1992. The album also would become just the third album to spend its first ten weeks at number one on the Billboard 200 and the first in over 30 years, the last being Whitney by Whitney Houston. Its singles—"More Than My Hometown", "7 Summers", "Sand in My Boots" and "Wasted on You"—were record-breaking hit songs that pushed Wallen farther into the national conversation. "7 Summers" earned him his first top 10 on the Hot 100, debuting and peaking at number six, and was also chosen by Time as one of the best songs of the year. Wallen soon became the first artist to ever chart six songs within the top 10 of Hot Country Songs chart at the same time in the week after his album's release; likewise, the album charted 23 tracks on the Canadian Hot 100, and 19 tracks on the Hot 100 in the US.
On February 2, 2021, TMZ released a video recorded on January 31 showing Wallen using the racial slur "nigger" to one of his friends after a night out. He issued a statement shortly after and apologized. Several radio stations temporarily removed Wallen's music from airplay on their stations, and his songs were removed from Apple Music, Pandora and Spotify featured playlists. CMT and the Country Music Association removed Wallen's appearances from their platforms, and his record label Big Loud (and partner Republic Records) suspended its recording contract with him indefinitely. The Academy of Country Music announced that Wallen and the album Dangerous: The Double Album would be ineligible for the 56th Annual Academy of Country Music Awards. On February 10, Wallen shot an apology video in which he asked his fans not to defend him.
In April 2021, Wallen donated $300,000 to the Black Music Action Coalition in the names of 20 people who had counseled him following the incident. Those individuals were given the option to funnel their respective $15,000 donations to a charity of their choice, or keep the money within the BMAC. Wallen publicly spoke of his comments on Good Morning America on July 23, where he said that "he was around some of his friends, and they say dumb stuff together" and said that "he was wrong" to express those words. Wallen's songs returned to country radio in August when his single "Sand in My Boots" was released. He was nominated for Favorite Male Country Artist and Favorite Country Album for the 2021 American Music Awards, but was not invited to attend the ceremony, and was consequently unable to accept any awards if he won, which he did not.
In the week following the controversy, album sales of Dangerous surged. In some cases, the physical as well as digital album sales went up over 100% in the week following the controversy. He remained atop the Billboard charts for seven more weeks; If I Know Me even entered the top 10 for the first time. Over the ensuing years, Dangerous remained a juggernaut; Ben Sisario, writing in The New York Times, dubbed it "an unusually enduring hit". It has continued to break chart records: it was the best-performing album of 2021, and in 2022, the album broke the record for the most weeks in the top 10 on the Billboard 200 chart among albums by a solo artist, surpassing a record set a half-century before. Dangerous was awarded Album of the Year by the Academy of Country Music; Wallen also won Favorite Male Artist and Favorite Album at the inaugural Country Now Awards.
Wallen has continued to release new music, and has remained a popular draw on the road. The Dangerous Tour of arenas and amphitheaters was completely sold-out. His single "You Proof" became his third top-ten hit on the Hot 100 and first to reach the top five; both "You Proof" and "Thought You Should Know" topped the country charts. Wallen also collaborated with rapper Lil Durk on the song "Broadway Girls", a top-15 hit on the Hot 100; he also performed the song live with Durk at MLK Freedom Fest in Nashville. Wallen was a co-writer on the Tyler Joe Miller single "Wild as Her", released in February 2022, and the Keith Urban single "Brown Eyes Baby, released in July 2022. In December 2022, Wallen released a sampler EP titled One Thing at a Time, featuring three songs he had been working on up until this point, titled "One Thing at a Time", "Tennessee Fan" and "Days That End in Why". In 2023, Wallen expanded to stadiums with his One Night at a Time World Tour. Wallen released his third studio album One Thing at a Time on March 3, 2023. One Thing at a Time would debut atop the Billboard 200 and spend its first 12 weeks at number-one, blocking numerous albums from the top-spot and ending as the most-popular album on the Billboard 200 in 2023.
On April 23, 2023, at Vaught–Hemingway Stadium in Oxford, Mississippi, just minutes before he was set to perform, Wallen announced that he could not perform due to losing his voice. Fans were directed to receive refunds at their points of purchase. In May 2023, Wallen was featured on the song "Stand by Me" from Lil Durk's eighth studio album, Almost Healed. Wallen was a co-writer on the 2023 single "Fixer Upper" by Dallas Smith. Throughout 2023, Wallen released various singles, those being "Last Night", "One Thing at a Time", "Everything I Love", "Thinkin' Bout Me", and "Man Made a Bar".
On January 26, 2024, Panacea Records released a deluxe 10th anniversary edition of Wallen's 2015's extended play (EP), Stand Alone that includes eight previously unreleased songs. These songs were recorded in the same sessions as the original songs on Stand Alone. Before the release of the 10th anniversary album, Wallen released a statement on his Instagram page, saying that the release of this album was happening "against his wishes". Wallen released a song, called "Spin You Around (1/24)", an acoustic re-recording of the original, in response to the album's release.
On March 3, he shared performances as part of his Abbey Road Sessions and performed a new song, titled "Lies Lies Lies". On May 2, Wallen announced his next single, titled "I Had Some Help" (with Post Malone), to which was released on May 10, and debuted atop the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Wallen was featured on the Moneybagg Yo single, "Whiskey Whiskey". In September 2024, Wallen announced that his second single for his-then upcoming and untitled fourth studio album, called "Love Somebody", to which was released on October 18. The song debuted at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, becoming his third number-one and second debut. Wallen was nominated for seven awards at the 58th Annual Country Music Association Awards, with his only win being the prestigious Entertainer of the Year award. Wallen was not in attendance to accept and the presenter, Jeff Bridges, jokingly accepted on his behalf. On December 31, Wallen surprise released a single that he had previously teased on his Instagram account, titled "Smile."
On January 24, 2025, Wallen announced his fourth studio album, titled I'm the Problem, alongside a tour of the same name, and the release of the title track, which was previously teased on his Instagram account as "I Guess". The title track released on January 31, while the album has been announced with a release date of May 16, and will include 37 songs. In March 2025, Wallen released two promotional singles, "Just in Case" and "I'm a Little Crazy". On March 29, Wallen was the musical guest on Saturday Night Live, and performed the title track, along with "Just in Case". During his performance, there was a television in the background that displayed several titles for unreleased songs on the album, along with their track number. Any features were blurred out, including the artist featured on "Come Back as a Redneck", which was previously teased on Wallen's Instagram.
In 2016, Wallen began a relationship with influencer KT Smith, and the couple got engaged several months later. In 2019, they separated, allegedly due to Wallen's infidelity; their son, Indigo (b. 2020), was born several months after their breakup. Wallen has also been romantically linked with influencer Paige Lorenze, and fellow country singer Megan Moroney, who allegedly wrote her breakout song "Tennessee Orange" about him.
On June 1, 2024, Wallen opened Morgan Wallen's This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen, a six-story bar, restaurant and music venue, in downtown Nashville.
In May 2020, Wallen was arrested and charged with public intoxication and disorderly conduct after leaving Kid Rock's bar in Nashville after reportedly kicking glass items inside the bar when he was told to leave, as well as getting into multiple verbal altercations with passersby outside. The case was settled in a court hearing.
In October 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple videos were posted on TikTok showing Wallen ignoring CDC guidelines in bars and other locations in the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, area after attending a University of Alabama football game. As a result of this, Wallen was cancelled as the musical guest on that week's episode of Saturday Night Live; he ultimately performed in an episode two months later hosted by actor Jason Bateman, in which Bateman, Wallen, and several cast members parody the incident and resulting fallout.
On April 7, 2024, Wallen was arrested after allegedly throwing a chair off the roof of Eric Church's newly-opened bar on Broadway in Nashville, Chief's. He was charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment and one count of misdemeanor disorderly conduct after the projectile landed near two police officers on the ground. In December 2024, Wallen pled guilty to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment, with the other two charges being dismissed, and was sentenced to serve seven days in a DUI education center, and two consecutive years of supervised probation.
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