Country singer Luke Combs has apologised for using the Confederate flag imagery in photographs early on in his career. He says his understanding of the issue was different in the initial days.

The Confederate flag was an unofficial flag of the Confederate states of America. It was widely used as a battle flag by the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of Tennessee during the Civil War.

Luke used the flag in previous photographs and in a 2015 music video for Ryan Upchurch's version of his song "Can I get an outlaw".

"There is no excuse for those images. "I think, as a younger man, that was an image that I associated to mean something else. And as I've grown in my time as an artist, and as the world has changed drastically in the last five to seven years (when the images were created), I am now aware how painful that image can be to someone else. I would never want to be associated with something that brings so much hurt to someone else," Like told at a Country Radio Seminar, according to eonline.com.

"I apologise for being associated with that. Hate is not a part of my core values, and it's not something I consider a part of myself at all," he added.