Kid Rock Not Running: After Flirting With U.S. Senate Bid, Rocker Says ‘F*** No, I’m Not Running For Senate’

Kid Rock spent the summer flirting with a run for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan, but now he is setting the record straight — in a very Kid Rock manner.

On Tuesday, the rocker (whose real name is Robert Richie) appeared on Howard Stern’s SiriusXM radio show and came clean that he never really intended to run for Senate.

“F— no, I’m not running for Senate,” said the rocker (via the Hill).

Earlier this summer, Kid Rock began selling merchandise advertising his alleged run for Senate and making some campaign-style appearances. The movement came not long after Kid Rock visited the White House and posed for pictures with Donald Trump along with former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin and controversial rocker Ted Nugent. Kid Rock is a vocal and unabashed Trump supporter.

Many had taken Kid Rock seriously when he flirted with running for U.S. Senate, noting that pundits once believed Donald Trump’s candidacy was a joke and that there was no way he could make it out of the Republican primary, let alone win the presidency. Current Michigan Senator Debbie Stabenow had used the potential matchup against Kid Rock as a fundraising tool, telling supporters that he could actually win the state’s Republican primary.

It was all a publicity stunt. https://t.co/fYcvnKedNq

— Kelley C. Mayweather (@KCMayweather) October 24, 2017

While Kid Rock is deciding not to actually run for U.S. Senate, he told Howard Stern that he could change his mind if “the left” keeps going after him.

“If they keep f**king with me in the papers and everything, I’m going to run,” he said with a laugh. “And I’m going to go to f**king DC, I’m going to beat the s**t out of Debbie — whatever the f**k her name is — and then I’m going to go to D.C. and I’m going to smack the living s**t out of all of them motherf**kers on the Hill.”

Some noted that the seriousness with which Kid Rock’s fake Senate bid was approached signals a strange moment in politics and a likely side effect of Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump came into the 2016 race known largely as a reality television star from The Apprentice and his time as a celebrity businessman, but he was able to use that outsider status to take on a field that included establishment politicians like Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, and ultimately Hillary Clinton.

While Kid Rock may not be running for U.S. Senate, the rocker told Howard Stern that he still has a very busy schedule ahead of him. As the Detroit News noted, the rocker has a new album out in early November and plans for a tour starting in January.

[Featured Image by Theo Wargo/Getty Images]