Oliver Anthony said he’s turned offers worth millions of dollars after going viral with his song “Rich Men North Of Richmond,” emphasizing that he doesn’t want to be in the “spotlight.”
In a post on Facebook, the singer-songwriter from Virginia shared that his real name is Christopher Anthony Lunsford and that the name Oliver Anthony is a dedication to his grandfather (who bears the name) and the “1930’s Appalachia where he was born and raised.” Oliver said he never wanted to be a “full-time musician.”
“People in the music industry give me blank stares when I brush off $8 million offers,” Lunsford wrote. “I don’t want 6 tour buses, 15 tractor trailers, and a jet. I don’t want to play stadium shows, I don’t want to be in the spotlight.”
“I wrote the music I wrote because I was suffering with mental health and depression,” he added. “These songs have connected with millions of people on such a deep level because they’re being sung by someone feeling the words in the very moment they were being sung. No editing, no agent, no bulls***. Just some idiot and his guitar. The style of music that we should have never gotten away from in the first place.”
“There’s nothing special about me,” the singer continued. “I’m not a good musician, I’m not a very good person. I’ve spent the last 5 years struggling with mental health and using alcohol to drown it. I am sad to see the world in the state it’s in, with everyone fighting with each other. I have spent many nights feeling hopeless, that the greatest country on Earth is quickly fading away.”
At one point in his lengthy post, Lunsford shared that he dropped out of high school at the age of 17 before getting his GED and spending the next few years working in multiple plant jobs in western North Carolina.
Over the last year, he’s occasionally shared videos of his songs on his various social media accounts, where they have gotten anywhere from a couple thousand to several hundred thousand views. At the time of this publication, the “Rich Men North of Richmond” video has 25.8 million views on X.
Lunsford wrote that he never expected one of his songs to top the iTunes charts and said he figured if “Rich Men North of Richmond” might hit “300k views. I still don’t quite believe what has went [sic] on since we uploaded that. It’s just strange to me.”
He closed out the post with a religious message, “Just like those once wandering in the desert, we have lost our way from God and have let false idols distract us and divide us. It’s a damn shame.”
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