Last month Eric Church canceled a concert in San Antonio, Texas so he and his family could watch his beloved North Carolina Tar Heels take on Duke in the NCAA Final Four game. Eric got a lot of backlash for the self-admitted “selfish” decision, but he doesn’t regret it.

In a new interview with the “Rob + Holly podcast,” Eric opened up about the decision for the very first time.

“The big thing was the Duke game, for me — I hate to say this, I did care,” he shared. “To me, the championship was against Duke, because of the rivalry, because they’ve never met in the tournament, and it’s Coach K’s final game.” Eric added, “All those things were a perfect storm that I never would have conceptualized would have happened … It was just one of those really unique, once-in-a-lifetime things.”

Eric notes, “It was just something that I had to be there. …There was no way that I wasn’t being there. I’m very glad we went.”

• As for the backlash he received, Eric says that while he knew his San Antonio fans would be “disappointed,” he always confident his real fans would understand. “We’ve been through a lot together … 17 years now and I trusted they would understand,” he shared. “That’s the reason I just came clean and told the truth,” noting, “I could have said COVID, I could have said throwing up, laryngitis. There’s a 100 things, but I decided just to say, ‘This is what I’m doing.’ I knew they would get that.”

• Eric announced he’ll be making it up to fans in San Antonio with a “free” show in September.