Colin Kaepernick Calls the U.S. National Anthem a ‘Bad Song,’ 10 Years After Kneeling Controversy

Colin Kaepernick is not a fan of “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

During a Wednesday, September 16, episode of The Adam Friedland Show, host Adam Friedland asked the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, 38, if he thought the U.S. national anthem was a “good song.”

“No,” replied Kaepernick, who references the song in the title of his just-released memoir, The Perilous Fight.

“You just think as a song it’s whack?” Friedland prompted.

“It’s a bad song,” the former NFL player said.

At the start of the 2016 season, Kaepernick took a knee during the song to protest police brutality and racial inequality. Kneeling, which he said was meant to signify respect for members of the military while continuing his original protest, was done with the blessing of former Army Green Beret Nate Boyer, per The New York Times.

While his teammates and several other NFL players also began kneeling in protest, the move sparked major backlash.

When the 49ers told him they planned to release him after that season, Kaepernick opted out of his contract, but found no other team willing to hire him. He then sued the NFL, accusing the owners of colluding to keep him from playing. The parties reached a confidential settlement in 2019, per the Times.

But Kaepernick noted that times have changed a bit. “In the last few years, I’ve had more and more people like the deep south, white people, come up and be like, ‘You know what? I used to hate you. I was wrong about you,'” he revealed.

Friedland suggested it was because those people now feel like they’ve been “canceled” like he was.

“The hypocrisy of it is pretty remarkable,” agreed Kaepernick. “Yeah, it’s pretty, pretty solid cognitive dissonance there.”

In 2020, the NFL began playing “Lift Every Voice and Sing” — often referred to as the “Black National Anthem” — before important games as an acknowledgement of racial injustice, per NPR.

But Friedland asked Kaepernick what song he’d choose as the anthem instead, and then cheekily suggested Future‘s explicit 2015 hit “March Madness” — which references police brutality — when the activist couldn’t come up with an answer.

“Great choice,” Kaepernick responded, with a hand slap.

As First for Sports previously reported, the athlete is still ready and willing to return to the NFL.

“We got the cleats by the door,” he recently told Us Weekly, adding that he believes he’s better than “a good amount” of QBs currently playing.