Grant Hill has done a lot of things beyond his NBA playing career. But one of the more curious things he’s done is appear in Nickelback’s ‘Rockstar’ music video. And now we know how that cameo came about.
The video, if you do not recall, features a bunch of “ordinary people” like police officers and, uh, people on the streets of Chicago and New York City, singing the lyrics to the song. It also features celebrities and, you know, rock stars like Gene Simmons. Wayne Gretzky is in it. Kid Rock is there, too. So is the Teutel patriarch from Orange County Choppers. It’s kind of weird and, looking back, aggressively 2006.
Anyway, Grant Hill shows up at the 1:48 mark, signing a basketball and singing lyrics about signing autographs after Chuck Liddel sang about beating up “assholes.” At the time, it seemed like a weird spot for him. And on a Turner sports podcast with Howard Beck, the origin story of that appearance.
https://twitter.com/TurnerPodcasts/status/1062053261023145984
Hill laughed when it was brought up, then explained that his wife, Tamia, somehow made the connection.
“I had never heard of Nickelback before I was asked to be in it, Hill said. “I think they’re Canadian, and my wife is Canadian. My wife is a recording artist so I think they had the same management or the same something. And so I was asked to be in it.”
Hill said it wasn’t exactly a bucket list experience for him, but it is… something he did more than a decade ago.
“And so, yeah, I can say that I was in it. I can say that… not that it was on my bucket list, but I was in a Nickelback video,” Hill said. “I made a cameo in that. Go figure.”
Hill was still an active player back in 2006, so it was a pretty good get for Nickleback to have him in this star-studed music video. Beck tried to justify the connection, saying it makes sense given the Canadian music scene. But Hill wasn’t having it.
“It really doesn’t make sense but hey,” Hill said. “It’s all good.”
It’s great that Hill seems just as bewildered as the rest of us by the random appearance in the video.
