Morgan Wallen's sister defended him against backlash over saying the N-word: 'Cancel culture is the worst thing'
- Morgan Wallen's sister Ashlyne defended him after he was filmed saying the N-word.
- "Cancel culture is the worst thing that has come out of our digital world," she wrote on Instagram.
- While Ashlyne admitted that her brother made a mistake, she still asked for forgiveness for him.
Morgan Wallen's sister Ashlyne shared a lengthy defense of her brother to Instagram, days after he was filmed appearing to say the N-word while out with friends.
In the post, which Ashlyne captioned, "From my [heart emoji]," she blamed "cancel culture" for the continued backlash against her 27-year-old brother, whose recording contract has been suspended amid the controversy.
"Cancel culture is the worst thing that has come out of our digital world. It leaves no room for forgiveness and growth, in turn, leaving no opportunity for individuals who have made mistakes to learn from them," she wrote.
Ashlyne wrote that anyone who makes a mistake and "is truly sorry should be forgiven - not continuously bashed," and criticized "our digital world" for making it easy to spread hateful comments.
Elsewhere in the lengthy post, she called Morgan her "best friend" and admitted that "what he said was completely unacceptable," even though it "did not come from a place of hate or malicious intent."
"The word he used should not be in anyone's vocabulary," Ashlyne wrote, adding, "While derogatory language is unacceptable and ignorant in any situation, I do not believe the pure hate he has received is beneficial to the situation in any way."
After urging critics to treat Morgan with more empathy during this "low point in his personal life," Ashlyne called on people to remember each other's humanity.
"If you don't have anything kind to say, please say nothing at all. The only thing our world needs more of is love," she concluded.
Ashlyne's statement comes after a tumultuous past week for her brother Morgan.
On Tuesday, it was reported that Wallen was filmed shouting a racial slur on the streets in Nashville, Tennessee. According to TMZ, Wallen was on his way home with friends when a neighbor heard the shouts and filmed the incident.
In the video, Wallen can be heard calling a friend a "motherf-----" before calling another man the N-word. Wallen released a statement to TMZ apologizing for the incident.
"I'm embarrassed and sorry," he said in the statement. "I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever."
Wallen, a rising star of country music, has had all of his songs removed from the stations of Cumulus Media, the second-largest radio chain in the US. The largest chain in the country, iHeartMedia, plus Entercom and other radio stations, later joined in with this decision to ban his songs. His record label Big Loud Records has suspended Wallen's contract "indefinitely."
But the furor has turbo-charged his record sales. His catalog of albums and songs sold a total of 5,000 on February 2, the day TMZ posted the video. That number increased to 22,500 on February 3.
His latest album "Dangerous: The Double Album," released on January 8, has seen an even bigger increase - from 1,000 copies on February 2 to 7,000 on February 3, an increase of 511%, Insider previously reported.
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