Kid Rock Supports Bud Light After Previous Boycott

Kid Rock is continuing to walk back his boycott of Bud Light, eight months after he lashed out at Anheuser-Busch for pairing with trans activist Dylan Mulvaney in a promotion.

“At the end of the day, when you step back and look at it, yeah, they deserved a black eye and they got one. They made a mistake,” the “Bawitdaba” rocker said in a recent interview with Tucker Carlson. “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.”

“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 added. “I would like to see us back on board and become bigger because that’s the America that I want to live in.”

The rapper-turned-rocker went viral in April after he posted a video of himself on X (formerly Twitter) that showed him shooting cases of Bud Light with what appeared to be an automatic rifle after Mulvaney promoted a paid partnership with the beer brand that same month.

The video, which is still up on X, has more than 53 million views.

In June, Mulvaney addressed the controversy. "I was waiting for the brand to reach out to me, but they never did. I've been scared to leave my house," she said in part in a video. "For a company to hire a trans person and then not publicly stand by them is worse than not hiring a trans person at all. Because it gives customers permission to be as transphobic and as hateful as they want."

Anheuser-Busch later told The Messenger in a statement: "As we've said, we remain committed to the programs and partnerships we have forged over decades with organizations across a number of communities, including those in the LGBTQ+ community. The privacy and safety of our employees and our partners is always our top priority. As we move forward, we will focus on what we do best — brewing great beer for everyone and earning our place in moments that matter to our consumers."

Rock – whose real name is Robert Ritchie – was photographed in August drinking Bud Light while out in Nashville. The photos were posted on X by a concertgoer who was in attendance at the Colt Ford show along with Kid Rock.

In November, he appeared on Fox News and told host Sean Hannity that he "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 continued. "As a God-fearing man, as a Christian, I have to believe in forgiveness. They [Bud Light] made a mistake, all right. What do you want, hold their head under water and drown them and kill people's jobs? I don't want to do that."