By Megan Cartwright

Copyright newsweek

Kid Rock took aim at Live Nation Entertainment and its ticketing subsidiary Ticketmaster in a profanity-laden diatribe posted to social media on Tuesday.

Newsweek reached out to Kid Rock’s representative as well as Ticketmaster via email for comment on Wednesday.

Why It Matters

The expletive-filled tirade targeting Ticketmaster from Kid Rock—a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump and polarizing figure in American music, has gone viral. The incident spotlights ongoing frustrations among musicians and concertgoers over ticket scalping and the ticketing industry’s practices.

What To Know

On Tuesday, Kid Rock—whose real name is Robert James Ritchie—took to social media to share a three-minute and 30-second video about Ticketmaster, in which he called on fellow artists to speak out, too.

“There [were] some people in the business talking about ticketing when President Trump did that executive order with me in the Oval Office,” the five-time Grammy nominee began. “Know-it-alls out in California were like, ‘Oh, they’re just showboating, really did nothing.’ What he did was he ordered the FTC [Federal Trade Commission] and the Department of Justice to go investigate and see what the h*** is going on with ticketing. Well, guess what? They investigated, and what happened? They filed a f*****g lawsuit against Ticketmaster. Clearly they found out that those m*****f****** are crooks and they’ve been crooks for decades—f*****g over the public, f*****g over artists.”

“If you buy a ticket and go to a concert, you are their worst customer,” Kid Rock continued. “They want that ticket to resell on their own platform so they can f*** everybody twice. They get the service charges, they get another whatever percent—17 percent or something—on top of all the other horses*** they’re d*****g you around with.”

Kid Rock added that the entertainment company “could have stopped the bots years ago” and “could have fixed this f*****g problem” but that they’re “greedy f***s.”

“I hope they’ll go down, personally, right to the f*****g bottom. F*** ’em,” the 54-year-old shared with his fans. “I hope we can figure out ticketing so us as artists, when we set a price, we can get the tickets into the hands of the fans at the prices we set.”

Kid Rock performs on the fourth day of the Republican National Convention at the Fiserv Forum on July 18, 2024 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Kid Rock is a self-proclaimed “capitalist to the bone” and said the ticketing companies have “hidden behind the disguise of capitalism for years. F*** ’em.”

The “All Summer Long” singer pushed for “some regulations” or “whatever it takes” to solve the problem, noting: “I shouldn’t be the one to figure it out. These m*****f*****s should. But they haven’t, they raped us for f*****g years. F*** ’em. I hope they all go down.”

To conclude the viral clip, Kid Rock called on fellow artists to join him in the cause while also taking aim at past presidents.

“We’ll see if any other artists get on board, by the way, with this lawsuit and their management if they want to talk and tell them about the b***s*** that’s going on for decades. A lot of them will p*** out,” the Michigan native said. “Let’s see if Pearl Jam steps up, they wanted to fix ticketing years ago. They probably won’t because they’ll be like, ‘Oh we hate Donald Trump, we have Trump derangement syndrome.’ All these other presidents could have f*****g done something—Bush, Obama, Clinton. They didn’t do s***. Nobody has. Trump did. Trump is. We are. So, calling your bluffs right now, let’s see what happens.”

In March, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed at curbing ticket scalping and introducing reforms to the live entertainment ticketing industry. In September, the Federal Trade Commission and seven states sued Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster over allegations of illegal resale practices.

Under then President Joe Biden, in 2024, the Justice Department also sued Ticketmaster and Live Nation, alleging that they had an illegal monopoly over live events. In 1994, Pearl Jam filed a complaint against Ticketmaster over their service fees.

At the time of publication, Kid Rock’s video racked up more than 473,500 views on X with 23,000 likes and an additional 441,000 views on Instagram with 42,700 likes.

What People Are Saying

In March, Kid Rock stood alongside Trump as he signed an executive order tackling ticket scalping and introducing “commonsense” reforms. The singer said: “Anyone who’s bought a concert ticket in the last decade, maybe 20 years—no matter what your politics…