Mick Jagger gets it.
In a new sit-down with the New York Times, the 82-year-old gave a rare peek into the inner workings of being the Rolling Stones’ frontman.
He is surprisingly self-aware about his tremendous ego, which he’s learned to switch off when not on stage.
Jagger doesn’t let it trick him into believing that fans who pay good scratch to attend his concerts want to hear his political musings — unlike Bruce Springsteen who, on his unofficial No Kings tour, has been proudly fusing his greatest hits with Trump resistance storylines borrowed from the channel formerly known as MSNBC.
As the Times’ David Marchese charitably put it to Jagger: “Bruce Springsteen clearly sees his job as engaging in a meaningful back and forth” — which is, in itself, a funny framing.
There’s no back and forth with Springsteen, who delivers fiery political sermons from his partisan pulpit. Fans have to splash out all that money to the collection plate knowing what they’ll be served in between “Hungry Heart” and “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out.”
Referencing the Jersey boy’s approach, Marchese asked Jagger, “What does your relationship to the audience mean to you? What do they represent, all those people out there?”
The singer gave a thoughtful answer, acknowledging that when he plays music festivals like Glastonbury or the New Orleans Jazz Fest, the crowd isn’t necessarily there to see the Stones. Ultimately, he wants to put fans in a state that allows their worries to melt away.
“My job in the live music world is for those people that come to have the best time,” Jagger said, comparing it to a sporting event. “And you don’t want to lecture them.”
In a different era, such a sentiment would barely raise an eyebrow. It certainly wouldn’t warrant a headline: “Rock legend wants to entertain the crowd, more news at 6.”
However, in 2026, Jagger’s declaration feels like a rejection of our current, toxic state of culture with many of our entertainers, from music to movies, believing they have a moral mandate to marinate their work in resistance slop.
His take is refreshing. Especially coming off a wild Hollywood awards season where the red carpets were a parade of anti-ICE and anti-Israel flare — and yet even that didn’t satisfy legendary Spanish director Pedro Almódovar.
“There were not many protests against the war [in Gaza] or against Trump” the 76-year old told the LA Times after the Oscars back in May.
Somehow the lectures from Hannah Einbinder, Mark Ruffalo and Javier Bardem all award season were simply not enough. Maybe just one more starlet declaring “f–k ICE” would make us believe what they want us to believe.
These folks are completely out of touch with the real world — so much so, they don’t realize that the more we have to hear them drone on, the more we tend to simply tune out. We stop buying tickets to their movies and stop watching their shows.
There are seemingly fewer and fewer entertainers who understand that. (Kevin Hart, Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Duhamel and Kevin James are rare exceptions.)
But anytime a new star tries to say maybe all this lecturing isn’t a great idea, out come Hollywood’s pitchforks.
Last week, Dwayne Johnson said he was planning to stay mum on politics to focus on his screen work. “Stand by Me” actor and Kamala Harris fan Wil Wheaton called him a “coward” for his decision.
Wheaton spun a good yarn on Lardass in that coming-of-age movie, but neither he nor The Rock have any bearing on my opinions on world affairs.
We live in a world where politics is always on tap: If you want it, you can find it anywhere, anytime. It dominates everything we do.
This is why we need escapism.
When entertainment becomes polluted by political discourse, it not only alienates fans. It inherently feeds division.
People stop coming together to enjoy the thing they have in common: love of the art.
There’s no more communion. There’s only bizarre political tribes.
