Bob Ritchie, a.k.a. Kid Rock, will readily admit he lives in his own world—“and it’s great,” as he insisted to a Rolling Stone journalist in a recent interview. The rules of that world, though, apparently dictate that Ritchie can do as he likes, including get “belligerently” drunk in front of someone with a tape recorder.
After switching from white wine to bourbon and Coke midway through a sitdown with Rolling Stone, the MAGA-loving rocker began “shouting” at the journalist, David Peisner, who reports that his subject proceeded to pull out a handgun and wave it in his face.
“And I got a fucking goddamn gun right here if I need it!” he writes Ritchie yelled. “I got them everywhere!” To be fair, the preceding two hours of the interview were also pockmarked with bizarre exchanges, including a moment where Ritchie railed against immigrants before crying out “9/11!”
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But the evening slid off the rails after the gun came out, with Ritchie repeatedly spewing the n-word and berating Peisner, calling him a “college snowflake” and badgering him to “take a shot” at him.
Peisner describes the pair arguing over his attempts to leave, with Ritchie asking Peisner to crash at his mansion.
“You won’t make it,” Ritchie says, referencing a half-mile walk “up a steep hill, through unfamiliar woods,” in the dark. After more back-and-forth the pair are “chest to chest and he’s up in my face, but I think I can detect a sly smile creeping from the corner of his mouth,” Peisner writes. Finally, Ritchie appears deflated, and he agrees to drive Peisner to his car.
As Ritchie drove, Peisner said he turned to the journalist and asked him in a hushed tone if he’d do him a favor.
“Just write the most horrific article about me,” the musician said. “Do it. It helps me.”
Peisner described the erratic April interview in detail, including a visit to Ritchie’s mansion, which is reportedly modeled on the White House.
“The extravagant, airy mansion is decorated with taxidermied hunting trophies and neon beer signs,” Peisner writes.
“The bathroom hand towels are monogrammed with an ‘R,’ and a mirror near the sink has a naked woman in a ‘Liberty’ headband painted on it in pink. Images of Kid Rock’s platinum records adorn the garage doors.”
Peisner adds the 214-acre compound includes a saloon, a studio, and a “cavernous hangar with a pickleball court,” describing it as feeling like “what a 13-year-old boy might sketch if you asked him to design his dream home.”
