Orville Peck Claims He Kissed a Raiders Player in New Song
Peck says the player approved the lyric but declined to identify him, prompting one sportswriter to suggest former Raider Carl Nassib.
On his new album Mule, Orville Peck sings that he kissed a Las Vegas Raiders player. The song, “Ring the Bell,” features the lyric “I love the Lakers, the Mets and the Longhorns, made out with a guy on the Raiders.”
In an interview with Variety, the gay country singer explained why he included the lyric without naming the player.
“I’m going to preface this by saying that I did receive permission to sing that lyric from the subject in question and he was very thrilled,” Peck said. “I told him, ‘Look, I’m gonna keep it sort of ambiguous and mysterious, but I would like to include this in this song.’ He was very, very honored.”
Peck continued: “I would never have done it if it were somebody who was hiding or fearful of it coming out. This person would have probably allowed me to say their name if I wanted, but I didn’t think it was necessary. People can use their own common sense and discovery to try to figure out who it may be, but that’s all I’ll say.”
The lyric has prompted speculation about the player’s identity. Writing for the LGBTQ sports site Outsports, Shawn Laib said it is “safe to assume the guy on the other end of the gay kiss was probably Carl Nassib,” the former Raiders defensive end who became the first openly gay player on an NFL team’s active 53-man roster in 2021.
Nassib also played for the Cleveland Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers before retiring in 2023.
Noting that it could be someone else, Laib writes that “the fact that Peck says the player would have been okay revealing his identity means it almost has to be Nassib,” the rare Raiders player to come out as gay during his career.
Former NFL offensive lineman Kwame Harris — who came out in 2013, after retiring from football — played briefly for the Raiders in 2008, when the team was based in Oakland, California. Given that Peck emerged on the country music scene in 2019, it seems less likely that the two crossed paths. Nassib, meanwhile, played in Las Vegas, where Peck has performed.
Colton Underwood joined the Oakland Raiders’ practice squad late in 2015 and remained with the team through the 2016 offseason.
Underwood may have had more opportunities to cross paths with Peck, both before and after Peck’s 2019 musical debut. Still, Peck seems unlikely to have called Underwood a “Raider.” Underwood never made an NFL team’s 53-man roster and is better known for The Bachelor and his reality show Coming Out Colton than for his football career.
Mule is Peck’s fourth studio album. It chronicles his drinking and substance abuse, his time in treatment, and his life in sobriety. He told Variety that while the album is primarily about his life, he also intended it “to be a thank-you to many people and an apology to some people and an explanation to other people.”
Peck first performed the album in full earlier this month during a two-night run at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre.
“Even in rehearsals, I could barely make it through some of the songs,” Peck said. “These are very deep wounds. What better therapy is there than getting up and being able to express these songs? Then there are people listening and relating, and they’re sharing their pain. It’s a spiritual experience.”
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