Blake Shelton on Trump: ‘I Haven’t Endorsed Anybody’
Although Blake Shelton plans on casting a vote in November’s presidential election, he refuses to publicly endorse a candidate.
“I haven’t enforced [sic] ANYBODY for president,” he wrote in a tweet this afternoon, adding, “And I am not going to. I don’t do that shit.”
The tweet arrived several hours after Billboard published a cover story in which Shelton, when asked to respond to a Tea Party website linking his political views with those of Donald Trump, dodged the question, focusing instead on the Republican nominee’s unfiltered campaign speeches and dedicated following. “I’m not going to have the political conversation with you about Trump, or about Hillary Clinton,” he told Billboard, “but I will tell you this: Whether you love him or hate him, he says what he thinks, and he has proven that you don’t always have to be so afraid. A lot of people are pulling for him, no matter how much Hollywood fights it. I see people who don’t like him go and beat up people that do like him. You tell me, who’s crazy here?
“I probably wish there was another option, but there’s not,” he added.
Although not the focus on the Billboard article, Shelton’s political comments were quickly republished by a handful of web outlets, most of which interpreted his response as a show of support for Trump. A number of his peers have already made their presidential preferences public, but Shelton is staying tight-lipped.
The subject of tabloid rumors and gossip columns since his split with ex-wife Miranda Lambert last summer and his subsequent romance with Gwen Stefani, the country star unleashed a handful of angry tweets this afternoon, chastising the media not only for misinterpreting his comments, but for focusing on celebrity gossip rather than world issues.
“Go dig up another story,” he commanded, following his initial tweet. “It’s crazy that in this moment in time, with everything going on in the world, that spinning my words is so important to the media.”