Kid Rock has responded to his mention in Conan O’Brien’s Oscars monologue on Sunday (March 15), and the singer doesn’t appear to have seen the funny side.
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O’Brien decided to poke fun at the Super Bowl halftime show hosted by Turning Point USA as an alternative to Bad Bunny’s official performance. Rock played the ‘All-American Halftime Show’, alongside Gabby Barrett, Lee Brice, Brantley Gilbert, Spencer Waasdorp and Antonio and Allison Marin.
In his monologue, Oscars host O’Brien joked: “I should warn you, tonight could get political. Okay? And if that makes you uncomfortable, there’s an alternate Oscars being hosted by Kid Rock. It’s at the Dave and Busters down the street. Lot of tickets for that.”
Rock responded to the jab on X (Twitter) the following day, writing: “I love a good joke, even when I am the butt of it, unfortunately, this was not a very good one,” before promoting his upcoming ‘Freedom 250’ tour, which will take place in May and June.
I love a good joke, even when I am the butt of it, unfortunately this was not a very good one.
Either way, if you want to see a REAL good show this spring / summer that celebrates America and 250 years of Freedom – make sure you buy your tickets from (ugh) Ticketmaster for my… https://t.co/krNt2iJnHP
— KidRock (@KidRock) March 16, 2026
Last month, Rock – who testified to Congress a few weeks before about rising ticket prices – made the news for listing ‘First Class Seats’ on the tour for $5,000 each. In response, he said that God would “cut down” journalists from the “fake liberal media”.
After confirming that he was charging that price for the most expensive face-value tickets, he added: “They know damn well that’s not the full story.
“Instead of reporting facts or that lawn seats are only 50 bucks or how we are cutting out the scalpers, they twist it for headlines/clicks and to attack me – nothing new here.”
As for the alternative halftime show, it drew over six million concurrent viewers on YouTube and Rumble, while Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet considered it to be a success and said there would be a second alternative halftime event against the official show in 2027 (via The Independent).
Tom Morello, Zach Bryan and Kacey Musgraves, however, were just some of the musicians to mock Kid Rock for playing the concert. The musician also faced rumours of lip syncing, to which Kid Rock responded he was simply “out of sync”.
Bad Bunny’s show, in comparison, became the most-watched of all time, and it was revealed that the set drew 128.2million views in terms of pure US television audience, putting it in fourth place in the all-time rankings – behind Michael Jackson in 1993, Usher in 2024 and Kendrick Lamar last year.
The Puerto Rican star became the first Latin male artist and the first artist performing primarily in Spanish ever to take the headline slot, having previously delivered a guest appearance during Jennifer Lopez’s halftime show in 2020.
