Less than a week after he was featured in a high-profile Jeep Super Bowl ad — the first commercial of his lengthy career — news broke that Bruce Springsteen is facing DWI charges stemming from a November incident, and the car company appears to have pulled the spot from YouTube in response.
TMZ reports that the musician was arrested back on November 14 at the Gateway National Recreation Area in Sandy Hook, N.J., and he was cited for driving while intoxicated, reckless driving and consuming alcohol in a closed area. Springsteen was reportedly cooperative during the arrest, and he has a court appearance scheduled at some point “in the next few weeks.”
Obviously the optics of Springsteen driving in a commercial after a DWI arrest aren’t great, and the company has since yanked the video of their Super Bowl ad, titled “The Middle,” from YouTube entirely after initially setting it to private this afternoon. It also does not appear on Jeep’s Twitter account, though as of now, it remains on Springsteen’s social media. No word yet on whether Jeep plans to pull the ad — which featured Springsteen driving a Jeep in a nondescript small town and urging Americans to put aside their differences and meet in the middle — entirely.
Springsteen is currently scheduled to appear at the Light of Day Foundation’s Winter Love Fest 2021 virtual concert on February 13. As of this writing, he has not commented on the arrest.
Update: A spokesperson for Jeep has responded to our request for comment with the following statement: “It would be inappropriate for us to comment on the details of a matter we have only read about and we cannot substantiate. But it’s also right that we pause our Big Game commercial until the actual facts can be established. Its message of community and unity is as relevant as ever. As is the message that drinking and driving can never be condoned.”
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