Kid Rock is ready to move on from boycotting Bud Light ― or, more accurately, pretending to do so ― saying the company “made a mistake” in partnering with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney earlier this year but “I think they got the message.”
“At the end of the day, you know, when you step back and look at it ― like, yeah, they deserved a black eye and they got one. They made a mistake,” the “Born Free” singer told former Fox host Tucker Carlson in a video interview published Sunday.
“Do I want to hold their head underwater and drown them because they made a mistake? No. I think they got the message. Hopefully, other companies get it, too. But at the end of the day I don’t think the punishment that they’ve been getting at this point fits the crime,” he said elsewhere in the interview.
Rock’s claims of a boycott, along with boycotts from other conservative critics, resulted in Bud Light’s parent company, Anheuser-Busch, laying off hundreds of workers following a massive drop in sales.
Rock, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, told Carlson that Anheuser-Busch’s mistake was that it should have known its audience, and what they do and do not like. He also suggested that the brand moving its sales and marketing hub from St. Louis to New York City played a part in all this, saying that the company “started hiring these Ivy League progressive people” who “don’t know shit about working-class people.”
Rock famously shot up a case of Bud Light in April to protest the company partnering with Mulvaney. The musician told Carlson the stunt was marketing for himself, because he knows his audience. He also said it was fun shooting a gun and making a statement.
Despite his fervent public display, he was later caught on camera drinking Bud Light at Skydeck on Broadway, a Nashville, Tennessee, music venue. It was also revealed by CNN and Newsweek that his Nashville restaurant, Kid Rock’s Big Honky Tonk Rock & Roll Steakhouse, was still serving the beer, too.
When Carlson asked if he continued to drink Bud Light during his boycott, Rock admitted he’s no beer snob and will drink any kind, especially if it’s cold and free. He also said his home is packed with cases of Bud Light, because friends keep bringing them over as a joke.
Although Rock may not have taken the Bud Light boycott seriously, many others did, and Mulvaney said she became a public target because of it.
“For months now, I’ve been scared to leave my house, I have been ridiculed in public, I’ve been followed, and I have felt a loneliness that I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” Mulvaney said in an online video in June. “And I’m not telling you this because I want your pity, I’m telling you this because if this is my experience from a very privileged perspective, know that it is much, much worse for other trans people.”
Mulvaney recently spoke out about feeling used by companies and being abandoned by them when under attack.
“I realized that these companies were capitalizing on my identity and transness in a way that was really ugly,” Mulvaney said during a talk at Penn State earlier this month, according to its student-run paper, The Daily Collegian. “I was putting my energy and identity into situations that were not safe for me, or for the (trans) community.”