Oliver Anthony opens up to Joe Rogan about celebrity status
Luke Gentile
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Music sensation Oliver Anthony opened up to Joe Rogan on Wednesday about his new celebrity status and responded to the criticism he has endured in the wake of the success of his hit song, “Rich Men North of Richmond.”
Anthony’s private life remains relatively obscure to the public, and speculation about his political beliefs have run rampant on social media.
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He has been called out by both the political Left and Right, but the singer-songwriter told Rogan that all the guessing about his life has been amusing to watch.
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“It’s really funny to watch on my end,” he said on the Joe Rogan Experience. “Obviously, I know what’s true and what’s not.”
“Just what I’ve skimmed through of people sending me, like singing at the Super Bowl, like how many people have formed an opinion about whether or not I should be paid to sing at the Super Bowl. … I’m not singing at the Super Bowl,” he said.
People are just making things up for what appears to be social and financial gain, he said.
“There’s been hundreds of hours of people’s time wasted, probably, talking about all these little things that don’t even exist,” Anthony said.
“It’s just somebody made them up and put them on the internet. So, I’m just letting them ride. I think it’s great. I just think it’s great that at least the last couple weeks, I’ve been able to entertain everyone and get everyone’s mind all the other horrible stuff that’s going on in the world right now,” he added.
Rogan said not everyone may be laughing with Anthony and pointed to The Office actor Rainn Wilson as an example.
“Dwight from The Office, he f***ing chimed in,” Rogan said. “If he was gonna write a cultural anthem — what did he say — something like he wouldn’t write about overweight people on welfare. He would write about billionaires and their taxes.”
A criticism like that from a Hollywood millionaire is hilarious, according to Rogan.
“There’s nothing funnier than millionaires talking s*** about billionaires,” he said. “There is nothing funnier [than] millionaires pretending these billionaires are out of touch.”
Wilson should go down to West Virginia and experience the mining countries of Appalachia plagued by poverty and addiction, Rogan added.
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“The sad thing is it’s everywhere,” Anthony added. “People, right off the get-go, I guess because it was RadioWV that posted the original video, but I’ve never once advertised myself as being from, necessarily, from the mountains. My grandfather grew up in the western part of Virginia — the mountains, but I’m from Farmville, which is technically Piedmont, but even throughout rural Virginia, that poverty is a big issue, and drugs are a big issue.”
“It’s not just even in the rural areas,” he continued. “You go into downtown Richmond or any downtown, anywhere for that matter, these problems exist everywhere now … and that’s why the song resonated the way it did.”