Stay up to date with notifications from The Independent

Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.

Ted Nugent, who once dismissed COVID-19, sickened by virus

Rocker Ted Nugent is revealing he was in agony after testing positive for coronavirus — months after he said the virus was “not a real pandemic.”

Via AP news wire
Tuesday 20 April 2021 16:17 BST
People-Ted Nugent
People-Ted Nugent

Rocker Ted Nugent is revealing he was in agony after testing positive for coronavirus — months after he said the virus was “not a real pandemic.”

"I thought I was dying," Nugent says in a Facebook live video posted Monday. “I literally could hardly crawl out of bed the last few days," adding: "So I was officially tested positive for COVID-19 today.”

In the video shot at his Michigan ranch, the “Cat Scratch Fever” singer repeatedly uses racist slurs to refer to COVID-19 and reiterates his previous stance that he wouldn’t be getting the vaccine because he claims wrongly that “nobody knows what’s in it.”

Nugent, a supporter of ex-President Donald Trump previously called the pandemic a scam and has railed against public health restrictions. He has repeated a narrative pushed by conservative media and disputed by health experts that suggests the official death count from the coronavirus is inflated.

A poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research in late March found that 36% of Republicans said they will probably or definitely not get vaccinated, compared with 12% of Democrats. The seven-day national average of cases remains over 60,000 new infections per day.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in