Morgan Wallen on using racial slur: 'In our minds, it's playful'

July 23 (UPI) -- Morgan Wallen says he used a racial slur in what was supposed to be a "playful" moment with friends.

The 28-year-old country music singer addressed his use of a racial slur during Friday's episode of Good Morning America.

Wallen apologized in February after a video showed him using a racial slur while returning from a night out with friends.

"I'm embarrassed and sorry. 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," he said at the time.

On GMA, Wallen said his use of the word was "ignorant" and "wrong."

"I was around some of my friends," the star said. "We say dumb stuff together. In our minds, it's playful. That sounds ignorant, but that's really where it came from. And it's wrong."

Wallen said he would occasionally use the word around that group of friends.

"I wouldn't say frequently, no. Not frequently," he said. "It was just around this certain group of friends, I'd say."

Wallen previously said the video of the incident was filmed in "hour 72 of a 72 of a bender" and that he was "going to spend some time taking back control of ... living healthy and being proud" of his actions.

On GMA, Wallen said he checked into rehab for 30 days following the controversy. He also donated money from his spike in album sales to the Black Music Action Coalition and other organizations.

"Before this incident my album was already doing well," Wallen said of his album Dangerous: The Double Album. "Me and my team noticed that whenever this whole incident happened that there was a spike in my sales. So we tried to calculate what the number of -- how much it actually spiked from this incident."

"We got to a number somewhere around $500,000, and we decided to donate that money to some organizations -- BMAC being the first one," he added.

When asked if he thinks there is a larger problem with race in the country music industry, Wallen responded, "It would seem that way, yeah."

"I haven't really sat and thought about that," he added.