Rock star Dave Grohl’s mystery baby offers a lesson in crisis communication

Dave Grohl on stage at Mt Smart Stadium in Auckland on February 3, 2018. Photo / Chris Loufte

Dave Grohl — the Nirvana drummer and Foo Fighters founder — is as close as America gets to a rock ‘n’ roll father figure: funny and family-oriented, beloved by his fans and his fellow musicians and seemingly as steady as the drumbeats that made him famous. His nickname? “The nicest dude in rock.”

Earlier this week, however, that reputation took a hit when Grohl revealed that he was also paternal in a very real, and decidedly less flattering way, with the announcement of the birth of a daughter outside his marriage.

“I plan to be a loving and supportive parent to her,” the musician posted on Instagram on Wednesday, adding that he loved his wife and their children. “I am doing everything I can to regain their trust and earn their forgiveness.”

The decision by Grohl to make a preemptive announcement may well have been an attempt to control the narrative, something that crisis communications experts said was savvy.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Dave Grohl (@davestruestories)

“I thought it was clean, smart, simple,” said Melissa Nathan, the CEO of The Agency Group PR, which specialises in “reputation management”.

Molly McPherson, a crisis communications strategist, echoed that sentiment, saying that Grohl’s post was probably strategically timed, coming on the same day as the highly anticipated debate between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump.

“He likely knew that the media and the algorithm was going to be focused on the presidential debate,” she said, adding that “the best move for any celebrity is just to own the situation themselves, acknowledge it and move on ... Because people on social media have short memories.”

The timing may have also been influenced by worries about the news leaking, said Jon Reinish, a public affairs and crisis communications specialist, or appearing in a tabloid or other celebrity-focused outlet.

Grohl with his wife, Jordyn Blum, at Wimbledon on July 2, 2024. Photo / Getty Images

“The worst case scenario is that there is a TMZ stakeout in front of a hospital room where a child is being born or a stakeout in front of the house where your wife and kids are,” Reinish said. “Of course it’s going to be picked apart and of course he’s going to be attacked. But he got to have the first word.”

To be sure, the news was met with shock and anger online by some who took it as a personal affront. Indeed, the idea that a rock star was behaving like, well, many rock stars, seemingly shook many people’s faith in fidelity, with talk of “parasocial betrayal” and broken trust.

Mockery and memes of a sad-looking Ben Affleck, who knows a thing or two about marital problems, also proliferated online, even as Grohl pleaded for “consideration toward all the children involved, as we move forward together”.

me, a huge foo fighters & dave grohl fan, opening up instagram and seeing dave’s new post pic.twitter.com/VKmdTnq4jy

— claire. (@blissfulfiction) September 10, 2024

The level of upset by fans speaks to Grohl’s unique place in the music world, where he has reached almost Springsteen-ian levels of adoration and respect. He is one of just a small coterie of musicians to be enshrined into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame with two bands, both of which have been touched by tragedy: the 1994 suicide of Nirvana’s frontman, Kurt Cobain, and the death of the Foo Fighters’ drummer, Taylor Hawkins, in 2022.

Beyond his power-drumming, Grohl’s outspokenness about the importance of rock has made him an icon, said Anthony DeCurtis, a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, even as the genre has been declared dead, again and again.

“He’s sort of become, in a very unassuming way, the voice of rock ‘n’ roll,” DeCurtis said. “He’s still somebody who believes in what rock can be and what it can mean.”

At 55, Grohl is also conversant with social media (including, obviously, Instagram) and culturally versatile, willing to have fun outside rock. He has been a horror film auteur and a movie cameo regular; his 2021 memoir, The Storyteller, was a bestseller. He’s quotable and huggable: with a mane of grey-streaked hair, kind eyes and a sly smile, he looks like your cool uncle — if your uncle were to sell tens of millions of albums.

Dave Grohl and bandmate Taylor Hawkins, left, who died in 2022. Photo / Getty Images

Of course, Grohl is not the only superstar to have a child with someone other than his wife; he joins a lengthy list that includes Arnold Schwarzenegger and Henry VIII; fellow musicians Bob Marley and Eric Clapton; and even politicians such as John Edwards and Boris Johnson.

And while Grohl’s post may have gotten ahead of the news — something Edwards and many others failed to do, with disastrous results — it also left several unanswered questions, including who the mother is and when and where the child was born.

A representative for Grohl, Steve Martin, said he would have no further comment beyond the Instagram post. But in The Storyteller, the rocker went out of his way to thank his wife and children, saying that “without my beautiful family, I would not have made it past go”.

“You remind me each day that I am not a ‘rock star,’” Grohl wrote. “I am just a father.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

Written by: Jesse McKinley

©2024 THE NEW YORK TIMES