Did rock musician Kid Rock refuse to do a collaborative tour with pop star Taylor Swift? No, that's not true: This claim initially appeared in an article on a satirical website known for publishing fabricated content. There is otherwise no publicly available or credible evidence to support this claim.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Facebook on May 7, 2024. It began:
Kid Rock Refuses to Do a Collaborative Tour with Taylor Swift, 'We Need More Toby Keiths and Fewer Taylor Swifts'
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
(Source: Facebook screenshot taken on Thu May 9 22:50:39 2024 UTC)
In the comment section, the author of this post linked to an esspots.com article (archived here) titled, "Breaking: Kid Rock Refuses to Do a Collaborative Tour with Taylor Swift, 'We Need More Toby Keiths and Fewer Taylor Swifts.'"
The About Us page (archived here) of the Esspots website begins:
Welcome to the US page of Esspots (A Subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com specializing in Satire and Parody News), your one-stop destination for satirical news and commentary about the United States of America.
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on Google News, visible here, which found no credible documents or reporting to corroborate the claim.
Lead Stories previously debunked another esspots.com-originated claim that country music television banned Taylor Swift "for life."
In a previous fact check involving a different satirical website, Lead Stories found the claim that Kid Rock canceled six tour dates with Sheryl Crow and praised Jason Aldean false.
Lead Stories reached out to representatives of Kid Rock and Taylor Swift for comment on the "collaborative tour" post. This fact check will be updated if any responses are received.
Additional Lead Stories fact checks mentioning the Esspots website can be found here.
Esspots describes itself as being a "subsidiary of SpaceXMania.com," also a satire site. Lead Stories articles on stories published by SpaceXMania are here.
