Kid Rock Denies Lip-Synching at Turning Point USA Halftime Show

Kid Rock is making the media rounds after this weekend’s Turning Point USA alternative halftime show, doing the one thing every artist should be doing when their big show is a huge success: Insisting he wasn’t lip-synching.

The musician’s performance of his hit song “Bawitdaba” at the “All-American Halftime Show” definitely looked clunky, garnering plenty of online jokes and late-night bits. But in a video shared on social media Tuesday (and during a Fox News appearance last night), Kid Rock swore his performance wasn’t lip-synched, just super out of synch.

In addressing the accusations, Kid Rock confirmed that his performance was pre-taped and said that the show’s production crew struggled to properly line up his pre-recorded audio and video. In fact, Kid Rock swore, if he had actually been lip-synching, it would’ve looked a whole lot better. 

Kid Rock went on to say he was aware of the problem after the TPUSA team sent him the first cut of his performance. “We taped it, then they sent me a first cut, and my comment was, ‘The synch is off,’” he said. “If we would’ve recorded it and played like we were singing it, lip-synched it, it would’ve been pie to line up. It was very difficult for them because someone clearly wasn’t super familiar with the song.”

To that end, Kid Rock suggested his manic antics during “Bawitdaba” further made it difficult for the editors, as they weren’t able to easily pinpoint a moment to match the audio and the video. It’s unclear why this would be necessary, though. You know how film takes are preceded by someone hitting a clapperboard in front of the camera? That’s called slating, and filmmakers of all kinds have been doing it forever in part so that it’s super easy to match audio and video. 

It’s unclear if the film crew TPUSA hired to do its “All-American Halftime Show” remembered to slate before filming Kid Rock’s take. And the musician, to his credit, declined to toss anyone under the bus, saying he was confident they would’ve gotten the sync right if there’d been more time.

“I have nothing to say but good things to say not only about Turning Point, but the production team that they work with on this and other events they’ve done — top notch, first class all the way. Nobody’s perfect or gets it right every time.” 

(Unless, maybe, you’re Bad Bunny.)