Rapper Ice Cube tells Tucker Carlson why he gave up $9 million rather than take the COVID jab
'I**'m not real good with direct orders,**’ the songwriter and film producer explained.
Tucker Carlson and rapper Ice CubeScreenshot/Twitter
Wed Jul 26, 2023
“Why wouldn’t you take the vax? You had a direct order to take it. You were told to take it” Carlson inquired. And with some laughter, he added, “I mean, I’m sorry, they told you, they couldn’t have been clearer about it.”
Ice Cube responded amusingly, “I’m not real good with direct orders.” He added, for the producers of the show at Sony, “there’s no repercussions if they’re wrong [about the safety of the shot], but I get all the repercussions if they’re wrong.”
Yet forgoing the significant pay day “wasn’t a tough call” for the musical artist. “I wanted to be an example for my kids [to] really make sure they didn’t take it either. [And] show them that I’m going to stand on my convictions. And I was willing to lose $9 million and more, because we probably lost more since then.”
Carlson recalled the old adage of how “people who stand on their convictions are [considered] heroes, they’re brave, they have principles” and “they are the people we look to for inspiration.”
“But in this case, with this decision and these principles, you were not hailed as a hero,” the former Fox News rating king told Ice Cube. Instead, “you were attacked,” he said, showing a Saturday Night Live clip ridiculing the artist.
“I never told anyone not to get vaccinated, publicly,” Ice Cube replied. “That was never my message to the world. I didn’t even want people to know whether I got vaccinated or not.
The rapper said he was “pretty upset” when his vaccination status became public because he “was just going to quietly not take [the shot] and deal with the consequences as they came.”
He also mentioned that he knows people who have been injured by the vaccine.
“They suffer every day, and it’s hard to watch,” he said.
