Bodycam Video Shows Morgan Wallen Calling Eric Church After Chair Throwing Incident: “They’re Trying To Take Me To Jail”

Metro Nashville Police Department

Dialing up the Chief.

By now we all know what happened with Morgan Wallen’s infamous chair throwing incident that occurred at Eric Church’s downtown Nashville bar, Chief’s, last year. The country music superstar was arrested and charged with three counts of felony reckless endangerment and one count of disorderly conduct after throwing a chair off the roof of the building, and later pled guilty to misdemeanor reckless endangerment in Davidson County court in December of last year.

Morgan was ultimately sentenced to two years of probation and seven days in jail, to be served at a DUI education center.

Luckily nobody was injured in the incident, and there’s no doubt Morgan wants to put the entire thing behind him. But unfortunately, bodycam video from the arrest was released earlier today that once again has Morgan and his chair throwing arrest in the headlines.

In the video, obtained by the AP from the Metro Nashville Police Department, both Morgan and his bodyguard can be heard denying that he threw the chair from the roof:

“I ain’t done nothing wrong.”

And while officers inside the bar were reviewing security cam footage, Morgan was standing on the street with several other officers when he decided to make a call – to the bar’s owner.

Somebody in Morgan’s group can be heard encouraging him to call Church:

“You gotta call Eric Church.”

Morgan confirmed that he was, and got the Chief on the phone:

“Hey, these motherf–kers are trying to take me, they’re trying to take me to jail outside of your f–king bar.”

Church can’t be heard on the recording, but I imagine his next question was something like, “Who?” because Morgan then replied:

“The cops. I’m not sure… They’re trying to. They won’t let me leave.”

Morgan then puts Church on the phone, and the officer explains that they’re investigating after a chair was thrown off the roof of his bar. Church then reportedly asked the cop if they could take Morgan somewhere private inside the bar while he was being investigated, but the officer replied that he couldn’t do that:

“It’s not really something we can do… We’ve got a supervisor coming to the scene. Gotta treat it like we would with anybody else.”

Of course after reviewing the security camera footage it was determined that Morgan was indeed the one who threw the chair off the bar, and he was subsequently handcuffed and put into the police car.

Church recalled getting the call from Morgan during an interview earlier this year:

“Morgan called me from the street after it happened. I was watching college basketball, and he said, “Hey, this just happened.” I said, “Uh-oh.” I knew it was gonna be noisy, and it was — it was d–n noisy.”

Just a little bit. I know on our end it was one of the biggest stories that we posted all year, and it was something not only all over the news but all over social media with memes and jokes. Pretty noisy.

But Church says he thinks the incident was a learning moment for Morgan, one that he’s grown from in the year since it happened:

“It was actually a good thing for Mo. I think that was a line for him, and he’s done really well since then — it was a thing he’s reacted positively to as a person. I used the old Billy Joe Shaver line on him: “I’m just an old chunk of coal, but I’ll be a diamond one day.” He went down [to Chief’s] and apologized to the staff, shook everybody’s hand. I was proud of him.”

Good on him.

As for Morgan, he recently revealed during a conversation with Theo Von that his fateful trip to Chief’s was the last time he’s been in a bar:

“It’s definitely the best thing for me, you know…

I ain’t been in a bar since the last time I was in a bar that everybody knows about. The most public time I was in a bar, that’s the last time I was in a bar.”

Smart. Definitely smart.