{"id":629,"date":"2026-07-03T15:02:11","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/2026\/07\/03\/weird-al-yankovic-reveals-he-turned-down-nice-pile-of-money-for-ai-ad-im-not-down-with-that\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T15:02:11","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T15:02:11","slug":"weird-al-yankovic-reveals-he-turned-down-nice-pile-of-money-for-ai-ad-im-not-down-with-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/2026\/07\/03\/weird-al-yankovic-reveals-he-turned-down-nice-pile-of-money-for-ai-ad-im-not-down-with-that\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic Reveals He Turned Down &#8216;Nice Pile of Money&#8217; for AI Ad: &#8216;I&#8217;m Not Down With That&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While the parody singer &#8220;felt bad&#8221; about his &#8220;last-minute&#8221; decision, he said in a new interview that he&#8217;s no fan of artificial intelligence <\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/people.com\/thmb\/k1KREtBcZ1WIG69W9ACdEhNJUr4=\/filters:no_upscale():max_bytes(150000):strip_icc():format(jpeg)\/weird-al-1-7ab7811da5bf4c41af44620b62ccb99d.jpg\" alt=\"'Weird Al' Yankovic in May 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Emma McIntyre\/Getty\" title=\"Weird Al Yankovic standing with a microphone\" \/><figcaption><i>&#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic in May 2026 in Los Angeles<br \/>Credit: Emma McIntyre\/Getty<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h3>NEED TO KNOW<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic pulled out of an ad for an AI company because he&#8217;s &#8220;not a fan of AI&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The satirist told Syracuse.com that he turned down a &#8220;nice pile of money&#8221; when he backed out of the gig<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;I can&#8217;t be the poster boy for AI,&#8221; said Yankovic<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><a class=\"null\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/tag\/weird-al-yankovic\/\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"internalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"null\">&#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic<\/a> isn&#8217;t going to sell you on AI.<\/p>\n<p>The parody king, 66, revealed in a Monday, June 29 interview with <a class=\"null\" href=\"https:\/\/www.syracuse.com\/entertainment\/2026\/06\/weird-als-secret-hes-just-a-normal-guy-who-loves-fun-interview-syracuse-concert-preview.html\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"externalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"null\">Syracuse.com<\/a> that he pulled out of a commercial for an artificial intelligence company because he&#8217;s &#8220;not a fan of AI.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Yankovic, whose first name somewhat resembles the letters &#8220;AI,&#8221; was asked about his thoughts on AI parody songs. He told the outlet he was offered the gig amid his ongoing Bigger &amp; Weirder tour, but it just wasn&#8217;t his thing.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business. It was business software that would increase productivity,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And they offered me a nice pile of money. I said, &#8216;Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.&#8217; And then a week before we&#8217;re supposed to shoot it, I find out, oh, this is, it&#8217;s AI. And I thought, \u2018Oh no, I can&#8217;t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.'&#8221;<\/p>\n<figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/people.com\/thmb\/RgK7xfZgJ2ulzS9ifTt9WwPD7Fo=\/fit-in\/1280x960\/weird-al-2-c8975ec181cf41dea965e6374dd090e5.jpg\" alt=\"'Weird Al' Yankovic performs during the 2026 Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival in June 2026 in Manchester, Tenn.Credit: Erika Goldring\/Getty\" title=\"Weird Al Yankovic performs on stage singing passionately with a microphone in hand\" \/><figcaption><i>&#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic performs during the 2026 Bonnaroo Music And Arts Festival in June 2026 in Manchester, Tenn.<br \/>Credit: Erika Goldring\/Getty<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Never miss a story \u2014 sign up for <a href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/people-news-daily-newsletter-sign-up-8692701\">PEOPLE&#8217;s free daily newsletter<\/a> to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.<\/p>\n<p>As the &#8220;Eat It&#8221; singer explained, he &#8220;felt bad&#8221; about his &#8220;last-minute&#8221; decision to pull out, but it was one that aligned with his ideals. &#8220;I&#8217;m not down with that,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>Elsewhere in the new interview, Yankovic broke down his pre-show ritual. The hitmaker announced his 90-day tour back in November, featuring 75 shows in 67 cities and wrapping in the fall.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI kind of like quiet time just because I&#8217;m gonna be listening to loud music in my in-ear monitors for the next two hours,\u201d he told Syracuse.com. \u201cSo it&#8217;s just very quiet. You know, my ritual is: I&#8217;ll take a shower, I&#8217;ll comb out my hair, I&#8217;ll shave, put on my first costume, you know, and just kind of just warm up my voice. I mean, boring stuff, you know, just trying to prepare myself for the madness that&#8217;s about to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Earlier this year, <a class=\"null\" href=\"https:\/\/people.com\/weird-al-yankovic-musical-dare-to-be-stupid-in-development-11972628\" data-component=\"link\" data-source=\"inlineLink\" data-type=\"internalLink\" data-ordinal=\"1\" rel=\"null\">producers announced<\/a> that <em>Dare to Be Stupid: The Weird Al Musical<\/em> is currently in development, featuring songs from Yankovic&#8217;s extensive catalog and an original story co-written by Yankovic, Scott Brown and Anthony King. Alex Timbers is attached to direct.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEver since I was a middle-aged man, I&#8217;ve always wanted to be a part of the New York theatre community,\u201d Yankovic joked in a statement at the time. \u201cPlus, the one thing people always say about Broadway is that it&#8217;s \u2018severely lacking in Weird Al-based entertainment,&#8217; and I think this musical should fix that problem immediately.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While the parody singer &#8220;felt bad&#8221; about his &#8220;last-minute&#8221; decision, he said in a new interview that he&#8217;s no fan of artificial intelligence &#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic in May 2026 in Los AngelesCredit: Emma McIntyre\/Getty NEED TO KNOW &#8216;Weird Al&#8217; Yankovic pulled out of an ad for an AI company because he&#8217;s &#8220;not a fan of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everything-else"],"wpmagazine_modules_lite_featured_media_urls":{"thumbnail":"","cvmm-medium":"","cvmm-medium-plus":"","cvmm-portrait":"","cvmm-medium-square":"","cvmm-large":"","cvmm-small":"","full":""},"categories_names":{"1":{"name":"Everything Else","link":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/category\/everything-else\/"}},"tags_names":[],"comments_number":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/629\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adsandthings.com\/winews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}