Darius Rucker Speaks Out For First Time About Drug Arrest

Darius Rucker made his first comments about a February arrest in Tennessee on misdemeanor drug charges, saying he got stopped by police after friends who were moving asked him to "take some stuff."

The Grammy-winning country star and "Hootie & the Blowfish" singer spoke to Craig Melvin on TODAY on May 28 about the incident, which occurred on Feb. 1 in Williamson County, Tenn.

“I went down and we handled it,” he said. “My lawyers are taking care of it. It is what it is.”

He described the situation before he got stopped by authorities.

"It was funny because I was going to a friend’s house, they were moving and asked me to take some stuff," Rucker said. "And I did and got pulled, got stopped. And the crazy thing was, they let me go.

"And it was a year later that I get a phone call that said there was a warrant for my arrest," he continued. "So I went down. Fifty-seven years, I’ve never seen the inside of a jail cell."

Rucker, 57, said the charges are still pending. He was booked on two counts of simple possession/casual exchange of a controlled substance and one count of a violation of the state’s vehicle registration law.

Mark Puryear, an attorney for Rucker, told TODAY.com in February that the singer “is fully cooperating with authorities related to misdemeanor charges.”

TODAY reached out to the Franklin Police Department and the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office and has not heard back as of this posting.

Craig asked Rucker for clarification on how he ended up with the substances in question.

"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 also spoke about his new memoir, "Life's Too Short," which hit stores on May 28. In it, he writes about life on the road with Hootie & the Blowfish and drug use he said got so intense he was surprised he made it out alive.

"When I quit, I quit," he said. "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.

"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."

Rucker is now looking forward to the upcoming 50-date tour with Hootie & the Blowfish, which he said "could be the last time we do it."

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