TLDR
On “Big Drive,” Nick Cannon praises Donald Trump and calls Democrats the “party of the KKK” as Amber Rose explains her pro-Trump pivot, raising fresh questions about both stars’ Hollywood futures.
In the front seat of his web series “Big Drive,” Nick Cannon moved away from safe TV chatter. Sitting across from Amber Rose, the comedian and host leaned into political combat, praising Donald Trump, accusing Democrats of links to the Ku Klux Klan, and insisting he does not belong to either party.
At one point, Cannon told Rose he agreed with her “100 percent” and declared that “people don’t know that the Democrats are the party of the KKK” and that Republicans were “the party that freed the slaves.” The 45-year-old referenced his own conservative leanings, but stressed that he is politically independent.
Rose, who first broke through as Kanye West’s ex and then as the face of SlutWalk marches, framed her shift as an evolution. She called herself a “former Democrat, former liberal” and said she had been a liberal Democrat “my whole life” before deciding that Democrats did not care about Black people or people of color, while she believed Republicans did.
Cannon anchored his cynicism in history. Quoting Black scholar W.E.B. Du Bois, he told Rose that he “doesn’t subscribe to either party,” pointing to the 1956 essay “Why I Won’t Vote” and its claim that “there is but one evil party with two names.”
His KKK remark leaned on a fraught chapter of American history. Before the civil-rights era, Southern Democrats dominated the Jim Crow South, and some leaders had ties to the Ku Klux Klan, while the Republican Party ran on an abolitionist platform and elected Abraham Lincoln. In the decades that followed, party coalitions flipped as Democrats embraced civil-rights laws and many Southern conservatives moved to the GOP.
Rose reminded Cannon that her break with Democrats is not just talk. She spoke at the 2024 Republican National Convention and said she is “not married to any party” but voted for Trump because he was, in her view, the better option. Cannon laughed, used an expletive-laced line about Trump “cleaning house” and “doing what he said he was gonna do,” and compared his immigration stance to charging a multimillion-dollar club fee at the border.
For Cannon, the clip lands at a delicate point in a career built on mainstream access. He already weathered backlash over antisemitic comments that cost him work with ViacomCBS before he apologized and rebuilt with “The Masked Singer” and “Wild ‘N Out.” Openly admiring Trump and calling Democrats the “party of the KKK” could unsettle liberal viewers and the corporate partners who count on him for family-friendly fun.
Rose, meanwhile, is crafting a second act that looks different from the feminist rallies where fans once marched behind her. Moving from SlutWalk megaphone to RNC podium, and now trading war stories in Cannon’s passenger seat, she is aligning herself with a conservative audience that adores Trump and suspects Hollywood of judging them.
In the quiet of “Big Drive,” the exchange felt casual. In the glare of social media and network boardrooms, it reads as something else, a moment when two celebrities chose political clarity over caution and left studios, advertisers, and fans to decide what that means for their futures.
Where do you think this leaves Nick Cannon and Amber Rose? Share your take on whether celebrity political reinventions help, hurt, or simply reveal who they always were.
