Oliver Anthony’s meteoric rise to fame in the country music world has come with increased scrutiny, this time focusing on his accent.
Last month, Anthony was an unknown country music hopeful, but thanks to an endorsement from controversial podcaster Joe Rogan, he went viral overnight with his hit song “Rich Men of Richmond.”
A video of him singing the song was uploaded to YouTube on August 7 and has received 34 million views, with more than 130,000 comments at the time of writing.
Courtesy of Oliver Anthony Music
It won praise from many well-known conservatives for highlighting topics such as QAnon and Jeffrey Epstein. The song also takes aim at taxation, welfare cheats, obesity and makes reference to sex-trafficking.
Republican politician Marjorie Taylor Greene even dubbed the song, “the anthem of forgotten Americans.”
But his newfound fans may have already started to turn on the singer after comments he made during a Fox interview. Anthony described blue collar workers as “the melting pot of the world” and championed diversity saying, “that’s what makes us strong.”
“We need to learn to harness that and appreciate it and not use it as a political tool to keep everyone separate from each other,” he said, which earned the wrath of some conservatives on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Now his detractors have claimed the Farmville, Virginia, native has been faking his accent and pointed to the Fox News interview with Griff Jenkins as proof. They claimed his accent was not southern, even though his singing style would suggest otherwise.
Newsweek contacted Anthony directly by email for comment.
“So Oliver Anthony doesn’t have a Southern accent after all? Told you the guy was a plant, lol,” wrote one person on X.
Another added: “Where did Oliver Anthony’s accent go?? Also, why is he saying diversity is our strength?”
And a third wrote: “Oliver Anthony’s fake country accent it’s pretty spot on lol.”
It is not the only controversy Anthony has faced this week. Newsweek discovered he had been promoting videos with antisemitic content on YouTube.
A playlist he created on his official YouTube account called “Videos That Make Your Noggin Bigger” includes several videos about 9/11, which have been described by a group that combats antisemitism as containing dangerous conspiracy theories.
Among the list are also videos of news reports and discussions about events surrounding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York City and Washington, D.C., which appear to suggest Israel was involved in or had prior knowledge of the attacks.
Conspiracy theories about Jewish people’s role in 9/11 have existed since 2001 and are “a continuation of centuries-old antisemitic tropes about Jews supposedly manipulating world events for their own benefit,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a civil rights organization based in New York City.
Two of the videos in Anthony’s playlist speak about the “dancing Israelis,” which is a term used by people who claim the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, was behind the attacks.
“The most common ‘proof’ cited is the false claim that five Israeli Mossad agents were arrested on 9/11 by police who observed them filming and celebrating the attack,” the ADL wrote on its website.
It comes from an account by a witness who saw five men in a parking lot in New Jersey at the time of attacks who she claimed were smiling and giving each other high fives. She also told police she saw the men photographing each other as the Twin Towers burned behind them.
The men were arrested and the FBI conducted an investigation, but concluded that none of the Israelis had any information or prior knowledge of the attacks.