Kid Rock is facing widespread criticism after using a disability slur while discussing his Halloween plans during a live television appearance, a remark that quickly circulated online and prompted renewed debate about language targeting people with intellectual disabilities. The 54-year-old musician, whose real name is Robert Ritchie, made the comment during a segment on Fox News’s Jesse Watters Primetime on 24 October, pulling a disposable face mask over his nose and mouth before declaring that he would dress up for Halloween as what he called a “retard,” a term condemned by advocacy groups as demeaning. Clips of the exchange were reposted widely on social platforms within hours, and entertainment outlets summarised the moment under headlines noting that he said he would go as a “masked” version of the slur.
Footage of the broadcast shows Ritchie sitting opposite host Jesse Watters, who had been riffing with the singer about seasonal costumes when Ritchie produced the mask, delivered the line and then added a boastful aside about it being the “greatest costume ever” before the conversation moved on. The clip’s spread was driven in part by short-form reposts, where the sequence was trimmed to the mask, the slur and the off-camera reaction, with several captions noting that the exchange occurred on a mainstream cable news programme. A number of reposts paired the video with the observation that Ritchie was wearing a cap emblazoned with the word “Jesus” as he made the remark, a visual detail that drew additional comment as the clip travelled.
By the next day the segment had been embedded across multiple feeds and mirrored by aggregation sites that framed the remark as a Halloween “joke” that crossed a line, urging readers to watch the clip and judge for themselves. Some versions included a longer cut that captured Watters’s initial laugh and the show’s pivot to a new topic. Others reduced it to a few seconds of audio overlaid on screenshots. While the formats differed, the core elements were consistent: Ritchie donned a mask, used the slur, and described the idea as a costume, all on live television the week before Halloween.
Disability advocates and many social media users condemned the language as ableist and harmful, noting long-running efforts to retire the term from public discourse. The backlash followed a familiar pattern seen in past controversies surrounding Ritchie, who has courted attention with confrontational political commentary, including attacks on mask mandates and on public health officials during the pandemic. In this case, critics highlighted that the remark was not a song lyric or a private quip but a statement made on a prime-time news programme, a context that they argued carried a higher standard of care. Some posts urged Fox News to address the moment, while others called on the network’s advertisers to take note. As of the latest public reporting, there has been no formal statement from the host or the network about the incident, and the clip’s circulation has continued primarily through third-party uploads and entertainment-news recaps.