Jimmy Kimmel panned Kid Rock and Turning Point USA's dud of an alternative Super Bowl halftime show, mocking the country-rock singer's jorts and his “lip-synch battle with himself.”
“This was not a good program. It went off with a lot of hits,” Kimmel said during his Jimmy Kimmel Live Monday night monologue, referring to organizers' last-minute announcement they couldn't stream the “All-American Halftime Show” on Elon Musk's Instead, organizers directed people to watch the pre-taped show on YouTube.
“I guess all the snowflakes are so upset they might have to listen to Spanish for eight minutes, they decided to do their own halftime show,” Kimmel added. “And of course, like everything they do, it was a disaster. They couldn't stream it. They didn't get the rights. Kid Rock's lip-synch was screwed up. And that's the other thing. Almost all the complaints about Bad Bunny were you can't understand what he's saying. So who do they go to? Kid Rock, an artist whose most popular song is literally gibberish.”
Kid Rock denied that he lip-synched his performance, explaining the sound and video weren't properly synced up for the broadcast. “My halftime performance was pre recorded but performed live,” he said in a video posted on Tuesday. “No lipsycing like the haters and fake news are trying to report. When they synced the cameras to my performance on “Bawitdaba,” it did not line up as I explain in this video.”
Kimmel wasn't the only late night host to poke fun at TPUSA's counter-program, borne out of MAGA's outcry over Puerto Rican artist Bad Bunny headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Kid Rock served as the event's headliner, supported by lesser-known conservative country musicians, Brantley Gilbert, Lee Brice, and Gabby Barrett. Kid Rock only performed two songs at the close of the 30-minute show.
A sarcastic Jon Stewart praised Turning Point for putting on an “All-American Halftime Show that celebrates this beautiful country in the King's English we all share,” before immediately playing a clip of Kid Rock performing his indecipherable song “Bawitdaba.”
“Thank you!” Stewart joked. “Merriam and Webster couldn't have put it better themselves regarding the up-jumping of said boogie, insofar as the diggy-diggy-diggy, being da-bang-a-da-bang.”
Kid Rock offered his own thoughts on Bad Bunny's praised performance, saying it was not his “cup of tea.”
“I didn't understand any of it,” Kid Rock told Laura Ingraham on her news show. “I saw there's a lot of dancers and a lot of big to-do stuff. And, you know, he said he wanted to have a dance party; it looked like he had one … I don't fault that kid for doing the Super Bowl, getting in front of a global audience. I fault the NFL for putting him in that position and Turning Point for having to come out and having an alternative for people to watch. You know, it's just — poor kid.”
This article was updated on Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 1:20 pm to reflect Kid Rock denying his performance was lip-synched.
