Following the news this week that Ted Nugent tested positive for COVID-19, the musician’s detractors probably couldn’t help but feel some schadenfreude at the turn of events. After all, the 72-year-old “Stranglehold” singer, a comrade of former President Donald Trump and, following that same thread, a 2020 election denier, has frequently claimed the coronavirus pandemic isn’t real.
But rather than leave the musician to his consequences, late-night TV’s Jimmy Kimmel couldn’t help but poke fun at Nugent for his past statements. On Wednesday’s (April 21) Jimmy Kimmel Live, the show aired a compilation video of the many times the Nuge has denied the existence of COVID and its vaccines.
“You know who could have used the vaccine is Ted Nugent,” Kimmel said. “Ted Nugent, a man who repeatedly claimed the pandemic wasn’t real, COVID wasn’t real — guess what? He has COVID. It’s real. He says he’s been very sick for the past 10 days. So let’s take a moment now to relive some of Ted’s golden COVID moments.”
In the video, clips from several of the “Cat Scratch Fever” rocker’s livestreams run together to highlight his calling the global health crisis “bullshit” and “not a real pandemic, and that’s not a real vaccine.” In one section, the musician says that “COVID 1 through 18 didn’t shut anything down — but, whoa, COVID-19!”
Still, in an April 19 Facebook Live video, Nugent confessed, “Everybody told me I should not announce this. I have had flu symptoms for the last 10 days. I just, I thought I was dying — just a clusterfuck. … I was tested positive today. I got the Chinese shit.”
Most recently, per Heavy Consequence, Nugent has said he never denied COVID in the first place: “Saying that I claimed COVID-19 was a hoax, false,” the musician asserted in another Facebook Live. “We have actual footage of me saying … of course, there’s a Chinese virus. Hello? Who thinks that I claimed there’s no Chinese — there’s a Chinese virus, they call it COVID-19. I’m well aware of that.”
Catch Kimmel’s Nugent bit at about the 10:50 mark in the below video.
