Morgan Wallen is a country singer from Sneedville, Tennessee.
Although he first appeared on the singing competition show, The Voice, Wallen’s future career didn’t last long with the record label that had taken him under their wing after the show.
While the reception of his music was excellent among the target audience, the country singer made some questionable decisions that resulted in his career getting cut short.
Wallen still managed to make plenty of money to live comfortably on.
What Is Morgan Wallen’s Net Worth?
Morgan Wallen’s net worth is $4 million, having earned most of his money from the record deal he landed after being voted off The Voice.
Despite having an incredibly short career, Wallen has managed to create hits with the recognition he got from being on the reality show.
The country star was born on May 13th, 1993.
His father was the pastor at the local Baptist church and had Wallen in music lessons from an extremely early age.
Wallen’s introduction to music was through piano and violin lessons.
As a teenager, Morgan Wallen had turned his focus towards sports, such as basketball.
Wallen showed so much promise as an athlete that he was offered multiple scholarships.
After an elbow injury, he was no longer able to play competitively and decided to shift his focus back to his music.
Wallen, his sister, and his mother all used to sing at the family’s church, but Wallen never thought he’d make a career out of singing.
He is also a single father with a son named Indigo Wilder, who was born in 2020.
Since appearing on The Voice, Morgan has signed onto multiple record labels.
He worked with Panacea Records, Big Loud Records, and Republic Records.
Wallen’s future was looking bright as a country superstar.
With each release, his albums were garnering more and more recognition until Wallen made some poor choices with serious implications.
The controversies made people question Wallen’s character.
Although he apologized and promised to make things right, his words weren’t always followed up by the relevant actions.
The incidents put a permanent stain on Morgan Wallen’s career, but it still hasn’t stopped him from making his fast fortune.
Wallen may have been suspended from his record label indefinitely, but that hasn’t stopped his dedicated fans from supporting his music by any means necessary.
His Introduction To The World
The first time Morgan Wallen performed on television was for the reality TV show and singing competition, The Voice.
The Voice works by having three celebrity judges in massive chairs that are facing away from the stage.
Contestants are judged solely by their singing abilities, and the judges will only see the contestant if they choose to add them to a team of singers that the judge will train over the season.
Morgan Wallen was signed up for the show by his mother when he was 20 years old.
He auditioned with Howie Day’s song Collide.
Both Usher and Shakira turned around for the young country star.
Wallen chose to join Usher’s team and under his guidance, the country star managed to stay long enough in the season to eventually switch over to Adam Levine’s team.
To keep his place in the competition, Wallen won by singing a cover of Hey Brother by Avicii.
It only took Wallen three rounds before he was stolen by Adam Levine after singing Story of My Life by One Direction.
Wallen only lasted one more performance, with his final song being Stay by Florida Georgia Line.
The country star claims that he lost because he was told to sing more like a pop star than a country star, but there was an additional vocal coach behind the scenes who helped Wallen better find his own sound and voice.
Despite not doing well on the television show, Morgan Wallen was able to gain a lot of new fans.
Some of his biggest fans were well-known country artists, such as Blake Shelton and Florida Georgia Line.
Wallen was able to use the connections that he had made through The Voice to land himself a record deal with one of the local Tennessee recording studios.
Working For Panacea Records
Morgan Wallen befriended Sergio Sanchez, the lead singer of Atom Smash, while taking vocal lessons from him through The Voice.
The pair hit it off so well that Sanchez ended up introducing Wallen to Bill Ray and Paul Trust of Panacea Records.
Sanchez and Wallen would meet up to write music together in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Paul Trust and Bill Ray decided to fund a handful of songs to see what Wallen was capable of when there weren’t as many rules or requirements as on The Voice.
While working on the music, Morgan Wallen got increasingly involved with the local music community of Nashville.
This helped bring the much-needed attention that his first extended playlist needed.
The EP was called Stand Alone, and Spin You Around was the main track on the album.
Thanks to all the publicity work that Wallen had done previously, he was able to sell 15,000 physical copies of his first EP.
It had been downloaded about 8,000 times online at the time.
Spin You Around was Wallen’s first certified song and it became gold certified.
The song was able to reach this level of fame on April 21st, 2021, which was years after the song had been released.
However, Morgan Wallen’s manager, Dirk Hemsath, believed that he had already grown out of what Panacea Records could do for the young artist.
The record company has only had six artists over the years, which include Al’s Not Well, Stuart Davis, Endo, SQY, Hutch n’ Hoss, and Morgan Wallen.
Hemsath took a demo from one of their recording sessions and sent it to the agent of country stars Jason Aldean and Florida Georgia Line, Kevin Neal.
Wallen’s manager didn’t stop with just Neal.
He also sent a demo to Big Loud Shirt’s Seth England.
His Time With Big Loud Records
Wallen had thoroughly impressed Seth England, but that wouldn’t be enough to get Wallen signed as a recording artist for Big Loud Records.
He was going to have to impress some other executives of the recording label.
The country star was able to get the approval of the other Big Loud executives, such as Joey Moi, Clay Hunnicutt, Craig Wiseman, and Kevin Zaruk.
In 2016, Morgan Wallen was officially signed on with Big Loud Records.
While Morgan Wallen was able to record and debut his single The Way I Talk, he spent most of his early years with Big Loud Records co-writing music for other artists.
Wallen has co-written Preachin’ to the Choir for A Thousand Horses, You Make It Easy for Jason Aldean, and The Fall for Dallas Smith.
In 2017, Morgan Wallen went on tour with Florida Georgia Line for their Dig Your Root Tour.
It was until 2018 that Wallen was able to record his own album.
If I Know Me was released on April 27th, 2018, and published by Big Loud Records.
This was the album that had Wallen’s second single Up Down, which featured Florida Georgia Line.
That song managed to reach number 16 on Billboard.
Three days after releasing one of the first tracks from the album, Wallen released Whiskey Glasses, which managed to reach number eight on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs and number 11 on Country Airplay.
The track was directed by Just Clough and produced by Joey Moi.
In 2019, Morgan Wallen joined Florida Georgia Line for another tour before releasing another single, Chasin’ You.
Wallen claimed that the song was a reflection of how he was currently feeling, making many of his female fans pine for the opportunity to cheer the melancholy country star.
Things were looking great for Wallen’s future.
Recent Controversies
While Morgan Wallen had a promising future as a country music star, his career has been put on indefinite hold.
It wasn’t just one fatal mistake that did Wallen in, but rather a string of occurrences that happened one right after another.
The first incident occurred in May of 2020 at Kid Rock’s Nashville bar, Honky Tonk.
The singer was heavily intoxicated and recklessly breaking glass items inside the restaurant.
When police officers were called to the scene, Wallen began to get in verbal altercations with anyone trying to pass by.
Morgan Wallen was taken to jail but released shortly after his arrest once he had someone pay a $500 fine to swiftly get him released from jail.
The following morning, Wallen posted his apology on social media and thanked the police officers for remaining professional, despite his drunken behavior.
Wallen told his fans that the incident was just him and his friends “horse-playing with each other” and that he “didn’t mean any harm”.
The country star also apologized to the staff of Honky Tonk.
On October 3rd, 2020, Wallen was spotted maskless at a crowded house party where there were pictures of him kissing multiple women from the party.
At this point in the pandemic, rates of hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19 were on the rise.
Only a few months after the last incident, Morgan Wallen popped back up in the news again because he and his friends were being loud and disruptive in front of his house, which ended up waking up one of his neighbors.
To report the incident to police, Wallen’s neighbor began recording the uproar that Wallen was causing.
A little after the neighbor began recording, Wallen began to use explicit racial slurs.
The video spread on the internet like a wildfire.
His Indefinite Suspension From Big Loud Records
After the last incident, most of the country music industry took time to distance themselves from the troublesome Morgan Wallen.
The results of his actions were his alienation from everyone from his talent agency to country radio stations.
The first effect to come from Wallen’s actions was nearly all of the country radio stations pulling his music off of the air and their playlists.
They also pulled any ads containing his voice to completely remove him from the radio.
Even the people who had songs written by Wallen were appalled by his behavior.
Fellow country star Jason Isbell offered all the royalties that came from the song to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
Although Wallen promised to donate $500,000 across multiple Black-led organizations, the only one to receive any money was the Black Music Action Coalition.
However, they said that the amount that they received was actually less than that, and they encouraged him to donate to causes that work to fight against racist actions.
Even his talent agency didn’t want anything to do with the trouble-causing star, so WME dropped him as a client.
This has left Wallen’s career in a hole without anyone to help him crawl out.
Before all this occurred, Morgan Wallen had a massive joint record deal that he had started with Big Loud Records and Republic Records.
However, Big Loud Records has indefinitely suspended Wallen from its record label.
The choice to suspend the artist rather than officially drop him may seem like a public relations stunt, but it actually ensures that Wallen doesn’t get right back to where he was without consequences.
Since he is still technically working for Big Loud Records, he can’t look for another recording label that is willing to produce his music.
This move also ensures that Morgan Wallen doesn’t become competition for the record label.
They know Wallen’s loyal fans will follow him anywhere.
His Career Currently
Despite being suspended and removed from all publicity, Wallen’s fiercely loyal fanbase has increased the number of sales.
While some consumers may buy his music out of support for the young artist, others are buying his music out of fear that it may never be available again.
While you couldn’t find Wallen’s music in stores or on the radio, Big Loud Records never stopped the digital sales or streaming of the country star’s music.
His digital music sales increased by 327% and his album sales rose by 1,220%.
Many critics believe suspending him wasn’t the right move because the company is still collecting money from his sales.
They’re worried that the record label is simply suspending his pay, only to give back all the money he earned a couple of years later.
There are some critics of Wallen’s actions who aren’t even looking to have the country star fired or completely removed from the industry.
Rather, they want to see Big Loud Records bring in a diverse range of country artists and allocate more resources to finding and supporting these artists.
As for now, no one knows what Morgan Wallen’s suspension really means for the singer or the record labels.
Despite his actions, Wallen was able to make $2 million in revenue in only nine days after the last controversy was brought to people’s attention.
Wallen’s fans have proven that they aren’t done with the young country star.
While the country music industry may have pushed him away, his fans have begun to support him even more fiercely.
Morgan Wallen’s music returned to country radio stations on August 23rd, 2021.
His debut song after returning from suspension was Sand in My Boots from his Dangerous: Double Album, which he had begun working on before the controversies arose.
Morgan Wallen’s Future
Despite the trouble that this young country star has caused, his future is looking fruitful thanks to the strong support of his fans.
Slowly, Wallen’s discography is being added back to country radio stations and being seen back in the public eye more often.
While some may claim that Big Loud Records should have suspended him for longer, no one can deny that this singer and songwriter makes the country music industry a lot of money.
Whether it comes from sheer talent or the loving support of his fanbase, Wallen knows that he’ll be in the country music industry for a long time to come.
Some fans may have been concerned that the suspension was going to potentially kill Wallen’s career, but it has instead made him even more popular.
Since coming back, Morgan Wallen’s songs have been claiming places all over many top country music lists.
Hopefully, the wild-partying singer has learned the effect that his actions have on others and himself and will calm down in the future.
With a career like his, it would be a shame to have it thrown away based on avoidable actions.
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