Country singer Luke Combs is apologizing for his previous use of Confederate flag imagery.
The 30-year-old performer took part in a Country Radio Seminar event on Wednesday, Feb. 17, where he discussed fellow singer Morgan Wallen‘s recent controversy over video showing him using the N-word.
Luke told moderator and NPR critic Ann Powers and participant Maren Morris that he himself has changed over the years. He addressed the fact that he used the Confederate flag in previous photos and in the 2015 music video for Ryan Upchurch‘s version of his song “Can I Get an Outlaw.”
“There is no excuse for those images,” Luke shared. “I think, as a younger man, that was an image that I associated to mean something else. And as I’ve grown in my time as an artist, and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years [when the images were created], I am now aware how painful that image can be to someone else. … I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else.”
