At a rally on Friday in Glendale, Arizona, Donald Trump invited his “special guest” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and played “My Hero” by the Foo Fighters as his entrance song, without – to no one’s surprise – asking the band’s permission.
Earlier on Friday, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign — removing his name from the ballot in key swing states — and endorsed Trump. He later appeared at the rally to praise him as someone he believed was capable of making America “whole again,” embarrassing a large majority of his family members, including his cousin Jack Schlossberg, who sharply criticized the endorsement in a social media post, writing, “I have never been so surprised in my life. I’ve been saying it for over a year — RFK Jr. is for sale, working for Trump. They are bedfellows and love it. Kamala Harris is for the people — the easiest decision ever just got even easier.”
After X-user @WUTangKids tagged the Foo Fighters in a video from the Trump/RFK Jr. rally that included their song and asked, “Did you give Trump permission to use ‘My Hero’ to welcome RFK Jr. on stage?” the band responded with a simple “No.”
A spokesperson for the band confirmed this in a statement to Billboard, writing, “The Foo Fighters were not asked for permission, and if they had been, they would not have granted it.” He added that “appropriate action” would be taken against the Trump campaign and that any royalties collected from the unauthorized use of the song would be donated to the Harris/Walz campaign.
“My Hero” was the third single released from the Foo Fighters’ 1997 album The Colour and the Shape and was often believed by fans to be written about Dave Grohl’s former Nirvana bandmate Kurt Cobain, although the band never confirmed this rumor.
During an appearance on The Howard Stern Show in 1999, Grohl was asked directly about it and said, “Um, it’s more about ordinary heroes,” adding that he always looked up to “ordinary people.”
