One of the most outspoken proponents of the Bud Light boycott, the American musician Kid Rock, has declared all is forgiven and he’s back drinking the brew.
The 52-year-old, whose real name is Bob Ritchie, led a chorus of outrage back in April after the brand featured trans activist Dylan Mulvaney on a promotional can.
Rock proceeded to shoot up cases of Bud with a semi-automatic machine gun, video of which went global, sparking a boycott of the beverage.
Yesterday he told conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that he felt Bud’s owner, Anheuser-Busch, had “got the message”.
Rock said in the interview: “At the end of the day, when you step back and look at it, like, yeah, they deserved a black eye and they got one. They made a mistake. So, do I want to hold their head under water and drown them because they made a mistake? No, I think they got the message.”
He added: “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. I would like to see us back on board and become bigger because that’s the America that I want to live in.”
Rock concluded: “There’s nothing wrong with giving a spanking. You don’t spank them for the rest of their life.”
Just last month the singer claimed that he confronted Anheuser-Busch’s CEO Brendan Ball Whitworth during his appearance alongside former president Donald Trump at UFC 295. The singer told Sean Hannity on his Fox News show: “I actually had a great conversation [with Whitworth]. I told him, ‘You signaled to a lot of people like myself … by sending that can to the trans kid, you kind of signaled to us that you support that lifestyle, and more importantly, men being in women’s sports or in my granddaughter’s locker room. Most of us draw a hard line right there.'”
He also said that “didn’t want to be in the party of cancel cultures and boycotts that ultimately hurt working-class people.”
“I know people that work there and it’s not so cool to be wearing around that blue shirt anymore, going places. This is why they have a problem right now, it’s like, I can let the thing go,” he said.
On trans people, Rock said: “Be yourself. If you’re cool with me, I’m cool with you — that’s how most people are,” he said. “But as soon as you bring our kids into this, that’s where you’re gonna bring hatred into it. Leave our freaking kids out of it. That’s the bottom line.”
However, the boycott continues to bite. Weekly sales for Bud Light are still down about 30 per cent according to scan data obtained by Beer Business Daily, showing little signs of reversal despite discounts and new ad campaigns focused on football and music.
