President Donald Trump won't stop calling North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, "Rocket Man," but it's not paying off for the artist behind the 1972 song, Elton John. It's unclear if Trump is hoping this nickname will be catchy or insulting to the man who actually quite likes building rockets.
Trump has been fond of nicknaming his opponents in the past, referring to Marco Rubio as little, Ted Cruz as lyin' and Hillary Clinton as crooked. He has been using this particular name for Kim Jong Un in recent Tweets and a speech, calling the leader that in his first United Nations address on Sept. 19.
"The United States has great strength and patience, but if it is forced to defend itself or its allies, we will have no choice but to totally destroy North Korea," said Trump. "Rocket Man is on a suicide mission for himself and for his regime."
After Trump started using the nickname on Twitter, search engines noticed upticks in searches for both the term and Elton. However, once he called the North Korean leader "Rocket Man" on Tuesday's speech, Google reported a major spike in searches for the name — but not as much for English singer.
In fact, while people are reading Elton's lyrics more — the website Genuis told The Washington Post that page views for the lyrics jumped from 400 to 4,500 — there has been no increase in people actually listening to the song. Spotify said there has been no significant difference in the number of people listening to the song, it isn't on Apple's top 100 most popular songs, and Billboard has reported no increase in YouTube views — so unfortunately Elton isn't making a cent off Trump repeatedly mentioning his song.