Gretzky downplays his political involvement: 'You can't make everybody happy'
Wayne Gretzky is assuring everybody that he remains a proud Canadian despite his seemingly close connection to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The Great One has been all over the news lately, with Alexander Ovechkin breaking his all-time goals record over the weekend. This comes after Gretzky made headlines for his apparent support of Trump.
The 78-year-old president name-dropped Gretzky in a series of social media posts earlier this year, urging Canada to give up its sovereignty and become the 51st U.S. state.
While Gretzky had always been viewed as a shining icon of Canadian culture, some are now taking a different view of the four-time Stanley Cup Champion. The Gretzky statue outside of Edmonton’s Rogers Place had feces smeared on it recently, and a poster featuring him in a Canadian liquor store was also vandalized.
Gretzky appeared on the Ben Mulroney Show on Monday, where he was asked about his involvement in politics.
“Does it register with you, Wayne, that there are people out there with political agendas who use your name to further whatever they have on the horizon?” Mulroney asked.
“That’s okay,” Gretzky replied. “I got five American kids, seven American grandchildren, an American wife, a 103-year-old American mother-in-law. I always tell them every day, ‘You be as proud of the United States of America as I am to be a Canadian, that’s what your grandfather would have wanted.'”
“I don’t worry about those kinds of things because you can’t make everybody happy.”
Gretzky is a dual citizen of Canada and the United States and raised his family in California. He has lived in the U.S. since the Edmonton Oilers traded him to the LA Kings in 1988. His wife and five children are also all American-born.
“Trust me, I have no political power with the prime minister and president, that’s between those two guys, and that’s why you hold elections,” Gretzky said. “Can you imagine me telling your dad what to do when he was prime minister? Your dad [former Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney] would have laughed at me.”