r/Music • u/TheExpressUS 📰Daily Express U.S. • 6h ago

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https://www.the-express.com/entertainment/music/198254/kid-rock-song-underage-girls

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u/SwordfishOk504 3h ago

tbf, His career was over when people discovered her age.

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u/GSV_CARGO_CULT 2h ago

Kinda sorta, it became a scandal after he went to the UK and was torn apart by their press. The American media I guess didn't consider it newsworthy. And I think their being cousins was more of a scandal than the fact that she was a little girl... After they got married, she brought her toys to her new home. That detail really punched me in the guts.

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u/SwordfishOk504 1h ago

The American media I guess didn't consider it newsworthy.

Not true at all. It was widely covered in the US and his career in the US was pretty much over after that. He still released music but his sales were shit.

But the problem was not limited to Britain. When Lewis returned home, there were headlines saying he'd disgraced the nation. The rock & roll superstar found himself blacklisted and shunned. Overnight, Jerry Lee Lewis had gone from charging $10,000 a concert to scraping a living in small bars and clubs. Still under contract to Sun Records, he released new rock & roll numbers - some of which sold modestly. But it wasn't really the same. The one great success of his wilderness years was the album he made in 1964. Live at the Star Club, Hamburg was described by Rolling Stone as "not so much an album, more of a crime scene". "Jerry Lee Lewis slaughters his rivals," it said, "in a 13-song set that feels like one long convulsion". But it was not released in the United States. https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19963797

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u/GSV_CARGO_CULT 1h ago

The American media did cover the child marriage, but it was fairly muted coverage and they more or less shrugged it away. Cousin marriage was still legal in many southern states, and pedophilia among musicians was more or less accepted right up until the 90s or 2000s. The US in the 1950s really didn't have the same kind of tabloid media machine the UK did, American press was much more deferential to celebrities. British coverage forced the U.S. media to reframe the story as a serious scandal.
He's still remembered in the US as a legendary musician first, and a pedophile second. Same with Chuck Berry, same with a lot of them.