The celebrity circles surrounding the second Trump administration are pretty thin. Sylvester Stallone, Jon Voight, Adam Sandler’s close friend Rob Schneider and a scant few others support the President in ways loud and quiet. But other than pop star Nicki Minaj, whose residence in Trumpistan has caused a lot of head-scratching, no entertainment celebrity occupies a more prominent place in the MAGA firmament than the musician Robert Ritchie, better known to the world as Kid Rock. “I call him Bob,” Trump once said.
Kid Rock, the second most famous white rapper from Detroit, has long been in Trump’s social circles. He was a guest at Mar-a-Lago before either he or Trump became political figures. Though he grew up in Romeo, Michigan, an affluent rural town about 40 miles from Detroit proper, Kid Rock has often referred to himself as a “son of Detroit” and owns a clothing brand called “Made In Detroit.”
The bizarre video featured Kid Rock and RFK Jr. doing push-ups, playing pickleball and sitting in a sauna
He made his name as a DJ and rapper in the late 1980s and early 1990s, releasing an album called Grits Sandwiches for Breakfast. That album, along with a band called Twisted Brown Trucker, didn’t quite take. But Kid Rock exploded in 1998 with a diamond Atlantic Records release, Devil Without a Cause, which included breakout hits such as “Cowboy” and “Bawitdaba.” These successes made him a star in the late-1990s rap-metal explosion.
Almost immediately afterward, he switched gears and became a Southern rock artist, releasing a duet with Sheryl Crow. This phase culminated in a massive global hit, the 2008 song “All Summer Long.” He also became a tabloid figure: he started dating Pamela Anderson in 2001, married her on a yacht in St. Tropez in 2006 – and she seems to have filed for divorce just four months later. But politics loomed large.
Kid Rock has always claimed that he’s libertarian in his views. He supports abortion rights and same-sex marriage. He called Bill Clinton a “pimp” (in a good way) onstage at Woodstock in 1999 and performed at Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration. Despite flying a Confederate flag on stage in the 2000s as part of a tribute to Lynyrd Skynyrd, he said he never raised that flag with “hate in my heart” and accepted an NAACP Image Award in 2011.
Then came his real political shift. He endorsed Mitt Romney in 2012 and Ben Carson in 2015. When Trump ascended to the political sphere, Kid Rock became one of the first celebrities to back him, saying the US needed a businessman to run the country. “I’m digging Trump,” he said. Performing at an RNC-adjacent event in Cleveland in 2016, he ended his set by saying, “I love black people, I love white people, but neither as much as I love red, white and blue.”
During Trump’s first term, Kid Rock was an occasional sideshow. He appeared at the White House in October 2017, posing in front of a photo of Hillary Clinton alongside Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin, in an early version of the kind of trolling that would come to epitomize Trump’s presidencies. He teased a run for the Senate in Michigan, even launching a merch line. “If Kid Rock for Senate has got some folks in disarray, wait till they hear Kid Rock for president of the USA!” he said in a joke campaign speech.
His bid for the White House proved to be a publicity stunt – but when Trump ran again in 2024, “Bob” was by his side. He performed on the final night of the Republican National Convention, changing the lyrics of his 2000 hit “American Bad Ass” to feature Trump’s name. “Ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the most patriotic bad-ass on earth, President Donald J. Trump,” he said, introducing Trump from the stage.
Trump has put Kid Rock to frequent use during his second administration. Last year, he began engaging in a very public flirtation with Lauren Boebert, the MAGA-friendly Representative from Colorado, and engineered a dinner with Trump, UFC chief executive Dana White and comedian Bill Maher, a longtime Trump critic. “Trump is the type of person you have to meet to understand,” Kid Rock said.
Kid Rock’s role has ramped up in 2026. In late January, he testified in a Congressional hearing about unscrupulous practices in the concert-ticket industry, excoriating the Live Nation-Ticketmaster monopoly. “I love God. I love this country, I love live music and sports and I believe music fans and artists have been getting screwed for far too long by the ticketing system,” he said. “I’m in a unique position to testify, because unlike most of my peers, I am beholden to no one – no record companies, no managers, no corporate endorsements or deals. To put it plainly, I ain’t scared to speak out.”
On Super Bowl Sunday, he closed out Turning Point USA’s alternative halftime show. He urged the audience to read the Bible and give their lives to Jesus Christ. People noticed that his performance was out of sync with the audio broadcast. He later admitted that the performance was pre-taped. The next day, his cover of country artist Cody Johnson’s “’Til You Can’t” hit number one on the iTunes chart.
Most bizarrely, on February 17, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a video on Instagram, captioned: “I’ve teamed up with @KidRock to deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD.”
The 90-second clip, titled “ROCK OUT WORK OUT,” featured Kid Rock and RFK doing push-ups, riding stationary bikes, playing pickleball, sitting in a sauna, and, in RFK’s case, taking a cold plunge in jeans. They drink glasses of whole milk while lounging in an indoor grotto.
“If there’s one thing we could all come together with in this country,” Kid Rock said about the video, “it should be food and being healthy.” That’s not a very bad-ass message from the man who once wrote the lyrics, “Bawitdaba, da-bang, da-bang, diggy-diggy-diggy.” But we all have to start living healthy at some point, I suppose.
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