Morgan Wallen's reputation precedes him. Racial slurs, standoffish behavior at SNL, drunkenly throwing chairs from the top of Eric Church's bar. It's no wonder why he's tried to hide behind this Taylor Swift-esque refrain of how he's the problem. Church doesn't think as lowly of Wallen like a lot of other people though. Evidently, he even promotes it, with the way he made his own drink out of it. He tries to see the good in Wallen, even saying he was proud of him in the aftermath of the bar incident.
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Consequently, Church is the first to stick up for Wallen and what he stands for as he enters a seemingly mature stage of his career. Recently, the country crooner spoke with Rolling Stone in promotion of his Evangeline vs the Machine album. There, he tackles everything from the record's themes, Bruce Springsteen vs Donald Trump, politics, and the dicey public perception of Morgan Wallen. When it comes to the latter, he appreciates his ability to own up to his failures and talk about them.
Eric Church Praises Morgan Wallen Despite His Faults
"I have a lot of acquaintances in the industry. I don't have a lot of people that are friends," he says. "And what I've always loved about Morgan, and I could say the same thing about Jelly Roll, is their unabashed honesty about their flaws and their humanity. When he screws up, sometimes just even privately, he owns it. There's that vulnerability of 'I'm flawed and I'm sorry and I screwed up.' There's something about that that is wholesome."
I think we hide so much, especially being in the commercial music business — show business — you try to fabricate what you are," Church adds. "And most of those people that I know that fabricate that aren't that, but that's what their story is. And the whole time, they're trying to sell the public that "This is who I am.""
Ultimately, Church advocates for who Morgan Wallen really is as a person. He even goes as far to say that he's someone he believes he can leave his kids around. "I say this to everyone: I know the guy. And once you know the guy, it's a lot easier to be able to know the heart of that guy and to know where his moral compass is. And he's got a great one," Church says. "I remember when things took off for [me], and it's nowhere near the way it took off for him, but that's a really weird time. It can be really hard to deal with. We talked about a lot of that, and the shortest answer is, I would trust him with my kids."
