Kid Rock Once Said the Hardest Part of Cutting Back on Drugs Was ‘Relearning How to Drink.’ Now He’s RFK Jr.’s Fitness Partner

The HHS Secretary’s shirtless workout montage with the self-described hard-partying rocker has the internet asking one question: Why him?

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted a 90-second workout video with Kid Rock on Tuesday, and it went about as well as you’d expect.

The clip, titled “Secretary Kennedy and Kid Rock’s Rock Out Work Out,” features the 72-year-old Cabinet member and the 55-year-old musician lifting weights, doing sit-ups in a sauna, playing pickleball, and drinking glasses of whole milk together in a pool. Kid Rock‘s 1999 hit “Bawitdaba” blares in the background. Kennedy wore jeans for the entire thing — including the cold plunge.

“I’ve teamed up with @KidRock to deliver two simple messages to the American people: GET ACTIVE + EAT REAL FOOD,” Kennedy wrote on X. The Department of Health and Human Services reposted the video under the caption “BawitMAHA.”

‘I Cannot Possibly Imagine Two Men I’d Like to Take Health Advice From Less’

That was X user @mattxiv, whose reaction racked up 9.9K likes and 183K views within hours. He wasn’t alone.

“Kid Rock and RFK Jr. are teaming up for whatever this is. I have no words. My eyes are bleeding,” wrote @ArtCandee, pulling in 35K views and over 450 comments.

“Has anyone seen the Secretary of HHS?” wrote @masonisonx. “Oh sure, he’s in kid rock’s indoor pool chugging whole milk in his jeans creating content for social media.”

“The only thing kid rock works out is his liver,” added @Red_Menace206.

“What the [bleep] did I just watch?” wrote Alyssa Farah Griffin, co-host of The View, in a post that hit 55K views. And @FruitFlyNewz summed up the mood with a still of Kid Rock flipping off the camera in the sauna, captioned: “YOU GUYS TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY?!”

What Kid Rock Has Actually Said About His Own Lifestyle

The reactions might have stayed in “weird video” territory if not for Kid Rock’s own well-documented history.

In a 2011 interview with Men’s Journal, Kid Rock — born Robert James Ritchie — described the challenge of scaling back his substance use. He talked about how when you cut back on pills, cocaine, and weed, the hardest part is figuring out how to drink again. He added that he still blacks out occasionally, but “nothing too serious.”

That same year, he told Esquire about passing out on his bathroom floor after a concert — drugs and alcohol — while his son, around seven at the time, had to get his grandmother because something was wrong with his dad.

In 2015, he publicly called for the legalization of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin.

In 2019, a video of him going on a drunken tirade onstage at his Nashville bar went viral. He later said he has a big mouth and sometimes drinks too much.

And during a 2024 Rolling Stone interview, the reporter noted that Kid Rock was drinking steadily throughout the conversation — switching from wine to whiskey cocktails — and at one point grabbed a handgun from behind his chair and brandished it mid-sentence.

Kennedy’s video did not reference any of this.

This Isn’t Their First Hangout

Earlier this month, Kennedy visited Kid Rock’s Nashville home — a replica of the White House that the New York Post reported features a golden urinal — as part of his “Take Back Your Health” tour. He posted a photo on Instagram and thanked Kid Rock for “inviting me to your home and sharing your healthy habits.”

Social media users were quick to point out the irony, joking about Kid Rock’s well-known fondness for alcohol and referencing his 2007 arrest at an Atlanta Waffle House as examples of his “healthy habits.”

Kid Rock Isn’t the Only Unexpected Face of the MAHA Campaign

Kennedy has shown a pattern of tapping unconventional figures for his Make America Healthy Again messaging. He enlisted Mike Tyson — the former heavyweight champion perhaps equally known for biting off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear — for a Super Bowl ad promoting “real food,” calling it “the most important message in Super Bowl history.”

In January, Kennedy himself went viral after posting an AI-generated video of himself sipping whole milk and dancing in a nightclub. The whole milk moment has become a recurring motif — the Kid Rock video ends with the two men toasting glasses of it in the pool as the words “Whole Milk” flash across the screen.

The Message vs. The Messenger

Nobody is arguing with “get active and eat real food.” As far as public health advice goes, it’s about as uncontroversial as it gets.

But when the messenger is a man whose own associates once nicknamed him the “Early Mornin’ Stoned Pimp” — a reference to his sleepless, hard-partying lifestyle that became the title of his 1996 album — the message lands a little differently.

At this point, the only thing missing from the video was a Surgeon General’s warning.