Kid Rock has been facing public backlash after using an ableist slur on Fox News — including from the Special Olympics, which condemned the MAGA rapper’s remark before asking him to stand with intellectually disabled people.
During his Oct. 24 appearance on “Jesse Watters Primetime,” the “Bawitdaba” singer put on a surgical face mask while asking Watters to guess what he was going to be for Halloween. When the host suggested Dr. Anthony Fauci — an immunologist who became a right-wing target as he guided the U.S. out of the COVID-19 pandemic — Kid Rock laughed and replied: “A retard, a retard. … Greatest costume ever.”
In an open letter to Kid Rock published on Monday, Loretta Claiborne, a former gold medalist and the Special Olympics’ chief inspiration officer, said that using words that have historically belittled and dehumanized disabled people can reopen “wounds that so many of us have worked so hard to heal.”
“People with intellectual disabilities, one of the largest groups of people with disabilities in the world, have suffered generations of discrimination and humiliation,” Claiborne wrote. “In the 21st century, we’re still continuing to fight for the simplest form of justice: the recognition of our full humanity, a recognition you undermine when you use the word retarded.”
Claiborne is a seven-time gold medalist and the first Special Olympics athlete elected to the institution’s international board of directors. In the letter, she described the pain she’s felt when people repeatedly used the ableist slur against her — and asked Kid Rock to acknowledge the pain he caused the disability community in using the word.
The athlete offered to speak with the singer to share more about ongoing efforts to make society more inclusive and respectful of disabled people. While tolerance of the slur declined in the 2010s, researchers say that mostly right-wing public figures have influenced a kind of renormalization of the word.
“You have a powerful voice and a massive platform, and the world is watching. As an artist and cultural figure who influences millions, you can shape conversations and attitudes across the country,” Claiborne wrote.
“You have the chance to turn this incident into a statement of strength, to acknowledge the harm, to stand with people with intellectual disabilities, and to help lead the conversation toward greater understanding and respect.”
Spokespeople for Kid Rock, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment.
Kid Rock has used slurs incessantly over the years. On top of his usual racist rhetoric, the singer repeatedly said the N-word in a Rolling Stone interview last year while brandishing a gun, and in 2021, he used a homophobic slur while onstage at a bar in Tennessee.
“If Kid Rock using the word f****t offends you, good chance you are one,” he tweeted in third person after the 2021 incident. “Either way, I know he has a lot of love for his gay friends and I will have a talk with him.”