Darius Rucker is speaking out on his drug arrest for the first time.
In February, the "Wagon Wheel" singer was arrested in Tennessee on misdemeanor drug charges. He states that he was stopped by law enforcement after his friends who were moving asked him to "take some stuff." However, he claims that he was let go after the police stopped him.
"It was funny because I was going to a friend's house, they were moving and asked me to take some stuff," Rucker told Craig Melvin on the TODAY Show. "And I did and got pulled, got stopped. And the crazy thing was, they let me go."
At the time, he allegedly was possessing "14 unstamped, grayish and purple pills and a THC pen, which read '88.5% THC,'" Weau News reports. Police officers also allegedly found a blunt on Rucker.
A year later, he received a phone call that there was a warrant out for his arrest. He went down to the Williamson County Sheriff's Office to address the situation. The 57-year-old says that his charges are still pending.
"So I went down. Fifty-seven years, I've never seen the inside of a jail cell," he went on to say. "I went down and we handled it ... My lawyers are taking care of it. It is what it is."
He was booked on two counts of simple possession and casual exchange of a controlled substance. He was also charged for one count of a violation of the state's vehicle registration law.
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He also clarifies that his friends were flying and were unable to take the alleged drugs on the plane with them. The "Don't Think I Don't Think About It" hitmaker says he did agree to take the materials off of their hands.
"They were moving and couldn't fly with it," he said about his friends. "They said, 'Can you take this, and I said, 'Yeah.'"
Rucker's attorney, Mark Puryear, shared at the time of his arrest that he "is fully cooperating with authorities related to misdemeanor charges."
In his recently-released memoir, Life's Too Short, he reveals that his ex-wife saved his life by telling him to get sober following several years of drug abuse while touring with Hootie and the Blowfish.
"When I quit, I quit," he writes about his relationship with drugs. "It was one of those things where one day I was just told that I had to quit, so I walked away from it. And it was the best thing that's ever happened to me. I say all the time that (ex-wife Beth Leonard) saved my life when she did that."
He and his bandmates frequently reflect on being fortunate enough to still be performing together. The group is currently out on tour for a run of summer concerts.
"All four of us, we sit around and we talk, we're happy all four of us (in Hootie & the Blowfish) are still together and can do this, because one of us could not be here real easy."
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