Chris Daughtry, “America’s Last Rockstar,” is suddenly back in the news — which is funny, because nothing he’s done musically in close to 20 years has put him there. His career peaked in 2006, when his debut album tricked America into thinking he’d be a permanent rock fixture. Nearly two decades later, the only people who still spin his music voluntarily are the American Idol era soccer moms turned empty nesters who thought he was cute when they were still using T9 texting.
So how does Chris Daughtry, a man whose last true moment in the cultural bloodstream predates the iPhone, get himself into Rolling Stone and mainstream media headlines in 2025?
By taking a swing at conservatives, of course.
In a recent Rolling Stone interview about debunking fake AI-generated posts, including one absurd rumor that he helped finance murals of Charlie Kirk, Daughtry couldn’t resist tacking on a political virtue signal.
Daughtry — with Charlie dead barely two months — declared, “I certainly don’t stand with MAGA, Charlie Kirk, Turning Point, or any other movement rooted in bigotry or intolerance or exclusivity.”
There it is: the bland, prepackaged Hollywood line he knew would get him headlines again. Not for anything of substance. Just for insulting half the country (the half the mainstream media doesn’t like) and kicking a conservative who’s gone and cannot defend himself.
Talk about opportunism. But this should surprise no one, given how aggressively Daughtry has pandered over his career to stay afloat.
He has spent the better part of 20 years trying to get a single song back onto Top 40 radio. Years of reinventing himself as whatever he thought Hollywood wanted — from faux-rock frontman to adult-contemporary balladeer to pseudo-EDM crossover wannabe.
Let’s not forget “Battleships.” Remember that tune? Of course you don’t. The song was the saddest state of affairs: rock guy turning himself into a pop cartoon in one of the most transparent attempts at selling out the genre has ever seen.
He wasn’t edgy. He wasn’t hard. He was begging. Daughtry spent two decades chasing trends — and the trends still left him behind.
Meanwhile, Charlie Kirk never had to “sell out” to stay relevant. Charlie didn’t rebrand himself every time the wind blew a different direction. He didn’t pretend to be someone else. He didn’t posture for Hollywood or roll around begging for the mainstream media to notice him. Charlie built an audience because he stood for something. Daughtry? He stands wherever he thinks the spotlight points.
And here’s the craziest part: Now that Daughtry seems to realize there is no hope for him getting another Top 40 hit again, he recently started trying to pivot back to rock — because if you know you can’t be famous anymore, why not at least play the music you love? He is touring with bands like Creed and Seether — groups whose fanbases are overwhelmingly conservative, patriotic, faith-oriented, and, yes, MAGA-leaning.He wants those fans to accept him as “rock” again. But then what does he do? He insults them in one of the first chances he had to generate mainstream press attention.
His entire strategy is self-immolation. He’s attacking the very audience he is trying to win back. And that’s a shame for him, because his rock comeback strategy was working.
In 2024, right after re-inventing himself as a rock star, Daughtry enjoyed a couple #1 songs on rock radio. But let’s be honest: rock radio in 2025 has the cultural reach of a Waffle House jukebox at 3 a.m. Being #1 there is like being the fastest college runner at a teenage track meet — a nice personal victory, but it certainly doesn’t give one cultural power. Daughtry must know it, which must be why he still seemed to have the urge to chase bigger headlines by insulting MAGA and Charlie Kirk.
Just like all the previous times in his career that he attempted to chase mass appeal and publicity, this time will end up hurting him professionally.
If Chris Daughtry wants attention — real attention — he should write a hit song for the first time in years.
Instead, he chose the laziest, cheapest, most exploitative move imaginable: insult half the country and slam a deceased conservative leader two months after his death, because that’s the only way Rolling Stone would give him more than five seconds of attention.
If Daughtry doesn’t change course and stop insulting much of his fan base soon, it will soon be over for the “It’s Not Over” singer.
This time, it won’t be Ryan Seacrest sending him home. It will be the American people who, with their wallets and pocketbooks, won’t even allow him to sell out a meager 2,000-seat standing room only concert hall.
Edward Woodson is a talk radio host and conservative commentator who guest hosts for Laura Ingraham