Kid Rock has hit back at claims his Nashville bar and restaurant sent staff home to avoid an ICE raid last week.
During a recent busy Saturday service, non-citizen employees were reportedly told to leave Kid Rock’s Big Ass Honky Tonk Rock N’ Roll Steakhouse, which opened in 2018, alongside three other restaurants owned by Nashville businessman and Trump supporter Steve Smith.
The MAGA-supporting musician has now pushed back at the claims, without explicitly denying them.
“Clearly I do not have anything to do with day to day operations at my Honky Tonk - but it’s good click bait, I get it,” he began on X Monday in response to a news report on the incident.
“That being said, I 100% support getting illegal criminals out of our country, no matter where they are. I also like [that] President Trump want[s] to speed up the process of getting GREAT immigrants into our country - LEGALLY!” he exclaimed in the X post.
“It's that simple, folks. But the below is not a juicy enough headline to get clicks and views..in this day and age, the truth often is not.”
Rock, real name Robert Ritchie, is a vocal ally of the president and recently appeared at the White House for the signing of an executive order targeting ticket scalpers.
The reports of staff being sent home from his restaurant came from an unnamed employee who spoke to the media.
“Around 9.30 p.m. on Saturday, our manager came back and told anyone without legal status to go home,” the anonymous worker told the Nashville Scene. “Events at the Ryman, Ascend, the Savannah Bananas’ baseball game all let out, and it was crazy busy. But there was no one in the kitchen to cook the food.”
ICE confirmed there had been several raids across Nashville that weekend, which they said resulted in the arrest of 196 “criminal illegal aliens”, 95 of whom “had prior criminal convictions and pending criminal charges, while 31 were previously removed individuals who reentered the United States illegally, a felony offense under federal law,” according to an official statement posted the Monday after.
Of the arrests in Nashville, one was a 33-year-old El Salvadorian national and MS-13 affiliate gang member who had drug convictions and an active Red Notice for aggravated murder, ICE claims.
