By: Samuel Mortel
You can only stay at the top for so long. In any profession, there eventually comes a point where you reach the end of your prime, taking a real toll on the person mentally and financially.
This is especially true for artists, athletes, and entertainers; in these fields, your career is based on your ability to perform at a consistent level and maintain relevance. When a singer is no longer capable of making a good song, or a basketball player is no longer productive on the court, people just stop caring, and the same industry that told them they were special and supplied them with millions of dollars is just as eager to abandon them.
When your livelihood slowly fades away, how are you supposed to provide for yourself? For a while, we’ve seen numerous celebrities turn to the same method: grift to conservatives.
One of the most notable recent examples is rapper Nicki Minaj. Minaj was, for a time, one of the most powerful rappers on the planet, who’s had an iconic career with dozens of hits spanning over a decade. The rapper allegedly has insecurity about her slipping position as a central figure in the culture. The artist has been particularly antagonistic towards anyone who’s had a chance at taking her spot as the queen of rap, including some notable and infamous beefs with rappers Cardi B and Megan Thee Stallion. It seems that Minaj’s burning desire to maintain relevance, amid a fanbase that’s been growing increasingly tired of her antics, has led her to seek an audience amongst conservatives.
Since Donald Trump took office for his second presidential term in 2025, the rap icon has fully embraced the administration. Her support for Trump and the Republican Party has intensified with this year’s midterm elections, urging her fans to “vote red,” and even taking the stage with Trump at an Oct. 25 rally that the President held for Michigan Senate candidate Mike Rodgers. Rogers would end up losing the race, along with other candidates that Minaj endorsed. After the results of the midterms, the rapper took to social media to double down on her support for Trump.
Minaj isn’t the only musician or even the only rapper who’s appeared alongside Trump following a fall from grace. Back in 2020, Trump held a rally (ironically, also in Michigan) where he invited rapper Lil Pump on stage. Despite calling him “one of the big superstars of the world,” Lil Pump had long vanished from the public consciousness, quickly rising and falling in the SoundCloud-rap era of 2017.
One of the well-known examples of a has-been artist grifting to the right is Kid Rock, who found fame in the early 2000s as a rap-rock musician. His success came and went, and he’s currently mostly known as a committed Trump ally. He might be a pioneer for fallen celebrities pivoting to the right, making money off of Republicans by selling pro-Trump merchandise before he ever took office. Kid Rock has maintained his relationship to Donald Trump, standing alongside him in the Oval Office as recently as last March.
For a minute, it seemed like Jonathan Majors had the world in his hands. After capturing the attention of audiences with acclaimed performances in movies like “The Last Black Man in San Francisco” and “Creed III”, Majors was poised for a rise to international stardom as a central antagonist in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This all came crashing down when the actor was met with multiple charges of assault and harassment against his then-girlfriend, which led to him being dropped by Marvel. Eventually, Majors was found guilty, and his meteoric rise quickly fell back down to earth. However, Majors made a surprising return to film recently in “Run Hide Fight: Infidels,” the latest release from conservative commentator Ben Shapiro’s media company, The Daily Wire. The film has received backlash for its controversial themes, including a monologue where Majors outlines a far-right conspiracy theory that Muslims are plotting to take over western civilization.
Former National Basketball Association (NBA) player Enes Kanter Freedom has been on the right-wing grift for a while. Unlike other figures in this article, Freedom was never quite at a position of prominence, spending most of his 11-year career as a somewhat serviceable back-up center. Near the end of his career in 2021, Freedom started his appeal to Republicans by making appearances on Fox News and taking a stand against China. Since then, the now-retired NBA player has further embedded himself in the right-wing culture war with a stunt targeting the WNBA and transgender athletes. The women’s basketball league has been the target of conservative outrage surrounding what they see as nonspecific language that wouldn’t bar a potential transgender player. Freedom decided to make this a national issue with a bad-faith stunt to “come out” as a woman and declare for the WNBA draft.
It’s important to note that these sorts of antics and desperate moves for attention rarely come from people who are secure in their careers. Why is it that Russell Westbrook isn’t making plans to declare for the WNBA draft, or Zendaya isn’t signing up for the next Daily Wire film? Most of the time, successful celebrities don’t even pay any attention to these controversies. Some of the few instances I can recall where a still-relevant star acknowledged one of these grifts were from award-winning, celebrated athletes Shannon Sharpe and Montrezl Harrell calling out Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White, with Sharpe saying “If you were good, you’d still be in the NBA,” and Harrell calling the stunt “lame” and “corny.” While Freedom had a short-lived, unremarkable blip of fame, Harrell and Sharpe have both received accolades and are currently still enjoying lucrative careers with adoring fans.
There’s a reason why celebrities who feel secure in their careers rarely feel compelled to run to the right and find a new fanbase amongst conservatives. It’s no secret that, for a variety of reasons, popular culture usually leans more progressive and “politically correct,” and media representation amongst conservatives is relatively hard to come by.
In that case, if you’re a fallen star who badly needs a dose of relevance and maybe a little income, conservatives are a ripe group just waiting for anyone with even a slight margin of notoriety to signal to them.