Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson won’t publicly back a candidate in this year’s presidential election, a notable departure from his vocal pro-Biden position four years ago.
In an interview with Fox News star Will Cain, The Rock said he’d reflected on his 2020 public endorsement of the Biden-Harris campaign and now prefers to keep his politics private.
“The endorsement that I made years ago with Biden was one I thought was the best decision for me at that time. I realize now going into this election, I will not do that, my goal is to bring this country together,” said the actor and former pro-wrestler who has toyed with the idea of a presidential run.
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Johnson added that he believed the Biden presidency has sown “division” in the country, repeating Fox-friendly platitudes about “cancel culture, woke culture, this culture, that culture” which he said “really bugs me.” He didn’t go into further detail about what that “division” looked like to him.
“In the spirit of that, you either succumb and be what other people want you to be, or you go, no, that’s not who I am, I’m going to be myself and I’m going to be real,” he told Cain. “If you ask me something, a real answer’s important and the truthful answer’s important. And that may make people upset, it may piss people off, but that’s OK.”
While the actor said he won’t vocally support Biden, that doesn’t mean he is throwing his weight behind Donald Trump. Rather, Johnson explained, he is simply going to refrain from publicly sharing his preferences altogether. He cited his fame and influence as the reason for his newfound reluctance: The Rock was apparently sobered by the outsized effects he believes his endorsement had on the last presidential election, which, in his view, only led to “an incredible amount of division.”
“Fame is a superpower when used correctly, I believe, to influence people,” he added. “There’s gonna be no endorsement. Not that I’m afraid of it, but I realize that with this level of influence, I keep my politics to myself.”
