Country singer Morgan Wallen was filmed hurling a racial slur and has been dropped by radio-station playlists

• The country singer Morgan Wallen was filmed using a racial slur on Sunday, TMZ reported.
• One of the biggest radio chains in the US dropped him from its playlists in response.
• Wallen said in a statement to TMZ: "I'm embarrassed and sorry."

The country singer Morgan Wallen was filmed hurling a racial slur on the streets of Nashville, Tennessee, prompting one of the biggest radio chains in the US to drop him from its playlists.

According to TMZ, Wallen was returning home Sunday night with a group of friends when neighbors heard him yelling a series of comments to a man who was with him. A neighbor who heard the commotion filmed the incident.

Wallen can be heard on the video calling his friend a "motherf---er" and then referring to the man using the N-word.

"I'm embarrassed and sorry," Wallen told TMZ in a statement. "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. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better."

Cumulus Media, the second-largest radio chain in the US, released a statement to its stations Tuesday night ordering them to remove Wallen's songs from their playlists, Variety reported.

Country stars have responded to the incident. The singer Kelsea Ballerini wrote: "The news out of Nashville tonight does not represent country music."

The fellow country star Maren Morris responded: "It actually IS representative of our town because this isn't his first 'scuffle' and he just demolished a huge streaming record last month regardless. We all know that isn't his first time saying that word."

The Country Music Awards' reigning best new artist released his latest album, "Dangerous: The Double Album," last month, and it quickly topped the country charts. According to Country Insider, the record was streamed more than 240 million times in its first week.

Wallen previously got into trouble in May, when he was kicked out of a bar and arrested in Nashville. A police report of the incident seen by Insider said he "appeared to be a danger to himself and others."

In October, "Saturday Night Live" canceled a scheduled performance by Wallen after he was filmed not wearing a mask and ignoring social-distancing guidelines at a bar. He ended up appearing in a December episode of the show in which he joined a skit poking fun at his behavior.