Morgan Wallen knows he has no excuse for using a racial slur while he was drunk three years ago. And after talking to Black leaders after the incident, he began to understand why the slur was so hurtful to their community.

He tells Billboard, “And I think, for me, in my heart I was never that guy that people were portraying me to be, so there was a little bit of like, ‘Damn, I’m kind of actually mad about this a little bit because I know I shouldn’t have said this, but I’m really not that guy.’”

Following a month-long stay at a rehab facility after the incident, he changed his drinking habits on the road. “That used to be my warmup — to get half lit: ‘I’m going out there, and we’re going to go have fun.’ Now, that is not the way I approach it.”

The issue of Billboard with Morgan on the cover will be available on Saturday.