By JONATHAN MATTISE and KRISTIN M. HALL Associated Press
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Country music star Morgan Wallen denied to police that he threw a chair off a Nashville honky-tonk bar roof before and after he was arrested and charged with reckless endangerment in 2024, police video obtained by The Associated Press shows.
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 said he “made amends” with Nashville law enforcement and others. Then in December, he pleaded guilty to two counts.
The Metro Nashville Police Department released the footage of Wallen’s arrest, captured by several officers’ body and cruiser cameras, in response to a public records request from the AP. A previously released arrest affidavit did not get into the details of what Wallen told officers.
A broken chair by Chief’s
A police car camera shows two officers, who were standing outside, react to something apparently falling from above on a late Sunday night. And one officer’s body camera video begins with a shot of a broken chair in the road near his parked police cruiser, close to Chief’s on Broadway, in the city’s entertainment district.
Then, as Wallen and his bodyguard team come down to the main entrance on Broadway, one of the men 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 workers of “being aggressive.”
When an officer asks Wallen what happened, the musician replies, “I don’t know.”
He later tells another officer, “We’ve not tried to cause no problems, man. I don’t know what they are — I don’t know why.”
That officer said police were figuring out what happened after a chair came flying off the roof and landed by his patrol car. Wallen replied, “As you should.”
Calling Eric Church
At one point, Wallen is on his cellphone, then points it at the officer and says, “Eric Church is on the phone.” Church, another country star, co-owns Chief’s. During the call, Wallen had used an expletive to describe the officers he said were “trying to take me to jail outside of your (expletive) bar.”
Church, who can’t be heard on the police recording, recommended to the officer that Wallen wait in a private space instead of standing on the public sidewalk, said a representative 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 did not respond to requests for comment.
Back in the bar, police were in an office watching security footage from the roof, body camera footage shows. The security video was not clear from the officers’ body cameras and a police spokesperson said there was no security camera footage from the bar in the case files.
The officers return outside and a sergeant, who says he watched security video of Wallen throwing a chair off the roof, handcuffs him.
Another officer talks to two witnesses. One, referring to the chair, says she saw Wallen “lift it up and throw it off” and laugh.
Throughout the hour-and-a-half ordeal, Wallen makes apologetic comments to officers without explicitly admitting to anything, including: “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, also noting police had witness statements.
Some fans took notice as Wallen stood surrounded by police in Nashville’s busy tourist hub. One yells, “We love you Morgan!” Once Wallen is in the back of the police car, he says to the officer, “Get us out of here,” noting that people were videotaping him.
Born and raised in Sneedville, Tennessee, the two-time Grammy nominee is one of the biggest names in contemporary popular music, loved for his earworm hooks and distinctive combination of bro country, dirt-rock and certain hallmarks of hip-hop. 2023’s “One Thing at a Time” broke Garth Brooks’ record for longest running No. 1 country album, and this year’s “I’m The Problem” spent 12 weeks at No. 1.
Wallen’s career has been marked by several other controversies, including a 2020 arrest on public intoxication and disorderly conduct charges after being kicked out of Kid Rock’s bar in downtown Nashville. In 2021, after a video surfaced of him using a racial slur, he was disqualified or limited from several award shows and received no Grammy nominations for his massively popular “Dangerous: The Double Album.”
A Thomas Rhett sing-along
Wallen was talkative in the cruiser, the footage shows, saying, “I ain’t done nothing wrong,” and pressing the officer for his favorite country musicians.
“I can tell you my top three right now,” the officer replies. “You’re honestly one of them.” 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, before singing a couple of the words from the song.
“TR is one of the best dudes in the world. He would definitely not be getting arrested,” Wallen adds.
Wallen pleaded guilty in December 2024 to two misdemeanor counts of reckless endangerment. He was sentenced to spend seven days in a DUI education center and be under supervised probation for two years.
When the judge asked how he would plead, he said, “Conditionally guilty.” His attorney has said the charges will be eligible for dismissal and expungement after he completes probation.
Wallen’s own Nashville honky tonk, not far from Chief’s, opened less than two months after his arrest.
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Associated Press Music Writer Maria Sherman contributed to this story from New York.