The latest episode of Fox Nation’s Tucker Carlson Today aired Tuesday and included the first part of Tucker’s interview with country music superstar and musician John Rich of Big & Rich.
In what might be an homage to the late, great Johnny Carson, longtime host of “The Tonight Show,” Tucker asked Rich, who grew up in a trailer, what he did when, “all of a sudden, you make money.”
Carson often asked young, up-and-coming actors and other performers who had “overnight success” what their first big purchase was when they got that payday. The one that immediately comes to my mind is actor/singer Eddie Murphy, who sat down for a 1987 interview promoting Beverly Hills Cop 2. He tried to wiggle out of answering Carson’s query, but after the host said that his first big spending spree was on a nice watch, Murphy sheepishly admitted to the King of Late Night he also had splurged on luxury watches.
On Tuesday, Rich answered Tucker’s question without hesitating:
I don’t even know what this means. I bought my grandparents a house.
He goes on to explain that it was for his “Granny Rich and [his] Papaw Rich,” who was a World War II veteran, describing his grandmother as “a woman who was born in the Dust Bowl Days” of the Great Depression in West Texas. He continues:
Simultaneously, these things are going on, and they were [on] Social Security. She was still working 40 to 50 hours a week at a dollar store. He’s trying to flip used cars.
I get my hands on this money and I thought, you know what, the only reason I get to go chase down dreams like this was because an old man like that went out and fought and bled and died for our right to do it.
As Rich speaks, images appear on the screen of him and his grandparents, and he struggles to keep it together and not break down, saying that he felt compelled to take them away from having to keep working in their later years. Check out the big grin on his face, when he describes the house he got them, in the video below.
As the years pass, we lose more of these great heroes from our nation’s past. It’s important to remember their struggles and sacrifices for our freedoms today. John Rich has the right idea, and shows where his priorities as a Christian are with his own words-followed by actions.