A 20-foot-tall neon sign bearing the name Morgan Wallen will not be built in downtown Nashville due to the country singer’s controversial past.
Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen will open this weekend in downtown Nashville, and approval from the Metro Nashville City Council was required before installation began on the restaurant’s sign.
But the council voted overwhelmingly against installing the sign, with many offended by the prospect of advertising the name of a person who has had run-ins with the law and made racist comments.
The motion was rejected by thirty council members, of which only three voted in favor of the sign The Tennessean. Four council members abstained from voting.
“I don’t want to see a billboard with the name of someone throwing chairs off balconies and making racist comments,” said City Councilwoman Delishia Porterfield.
A 20-foot sign with Morgan Wallen’s name will not be placed in downtown Nashville due to the country singer’s controversial past
A mock-up of the sign for the restaurant, which opens this weekend in Nashville
Councilor Jordan Huffman also agreed with her statements WSMV.com.
“I stand up to oppose this,” he said. “Number 1 – Mr. Wallen is from East Tennessee – he gives us all a bad name. His comments are hateful, his comments are harmful, and as far as I’m concerned, you don’t belong in this town. I’m tired of this city bending over backwards to please anyone who makes whatever comment he or she wants. We will continue to walk this path. I encourage my colleagues to vote against this.’
Even the resolution’s initiator, Jacob Kupin of District 19, had reservations about the sign. “It struck me that we’re putting up a sign with the name of someone who hasn’t been a good actor downtown,” he said.
“I decided to seek approval for this because I support the efforts to move this bar forward… the restaurant group that manages this facility, TC Restaurant Group, has been a really good partner in everything that’s happening downtown,” added he added.
TC Restaurant Group, the company opening the eatery, also operates other restaurants named after iconic country singers, including Jason Aldean’s Kitchen & Rooftop Bar and Casa Rosa Miranda Lambert’s.
Morgan Wallen’s This Bar & Tennessee Kitchen is expected to open Memorial Day weekend.
Last month, Wallen was arrested after throwing a chair from a rooftop bar in downtown Nashville.
Wallen was charged with three counts of reckless endangerment and one count of disorderly conduct, with officers claiming the chair landed three feet away from them.
Wallen faced massive backlash in 2021 when TMZ released a video of the singer saying the N-word to one of his friends after a night out.
The restaurant is opened by a third party, TC Restaurant Group
After footage of Wallen making racist comments went viral, many radio stations stopped playing his music and the Country Music Association removed Wallen’s performances from their platforms.
His songs were removed from Apple Music, Pandora and Spotify playlists because of the sandal.
Wallen’s record label, Big Loud, suspended his recording contract with him indefinitely.
The Academy of Country Music announced that Wallen and his then-most recent album, Dangerous: The Double Album, would be ineligible for the 56th annual Academy of Country Music Awards.
Last month, Wallen made headlines after launching a chair at police from a rooftop bar in downtown Nashville; pictured November 2023
In the week following the racism, Dangerous album sales soared and digital sales increased by more than 100 percent.
It even stayed at the top of the Billboard charts for another seven weeks.
In April 2021, Wallen donated $300,000 to the Black Music Action Coalition in the names of twenty people who gave him advice after he made racist comments.
Wallen spoke publicly about his comments on Good Morning America on July 23, where he said that “he was around some of his friends, and they say stupid things together” and said that “he was wrong” for saying those words to push.
