'Weird Al' Yankovic Pulled Out of AI Ad Despite Offer to Make a 'Nice Pile of Money': 'I Can't Be the Poster Boy for AI'

Source: Variety

Some things are too weird even for parody king “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Ahead of a Syracuse, New York, stop on his “Bigger & Weirder” tour, Yankovic revealed to Syracuse.com in an interview published this week that he was offered “a nice pile of money” to appear in a commercial for business-focused software, but he backed out once he realized the ad would involve AI. “I’m not a fan of AI,” he said.

“I’m not going to mention any names, but they told me it was for a business. It was business software that would increase productivity,” Yankovic told the paper. “I said, ‘Oh well, yeah, sure, I could do that.’ And then a week before we’re supposed to shoot it, I find out this is AI. And I thought, ‘Oh no, I can’t be the poster boy for AI, forget it.’ So I felt bad about kind of pulling out at the last minute. But yeah, I’m not down with that.”

The satirist, who also told the paper he’s seen the “Weird AI” jokes that’ve popped up online, joins a legion of Hollywood performers who’ve rebuked the technology.

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Read more: https://variety.com/2026/music/news/weird-al-yankovic-rejected-ai-commercial-money-offer-1236800794/