Among those who Morgan Wallen thanked in his brief Academy of Country Music Awards acceptance speech tonight were “those who showed me grace along the way.”
It was about as close as the country superstar got to mentioning the controversy that has dogged him since he was caught on tape making a racial slur toward a friend in February 2021. The fallout for the singer included being banned from attending the American Music Awards last fall.
In the time since, Wallen has been making amends, expressing remorse in interviews and doing sporadic concert walk-ons.
It has paid off. Not only did he have last year’s most popular album across all genres on the Billboard charts, he also launched a tour last month and won Album of the Year At ACM Awards tonight.
Click on the video below to see Wallen’s full acceptance speech.
And ACM Album of the Year goes to… Dangerous: The Double Album by @MorganWallen! #ACMawards pic.twitter.com/4AcbMY0Zyf
— ACM Awards (@ACMawards) March 8, 2022