The U.S. Senate isn’t exactly known for pop-culture gossip. But Louisiana Senator John Kennedy briefly turned Capitol Hill into a comedy show when he claimed with a straight face that Ted Cruz has a Backstreet Boys tattoo.
The bizarre moment unfolded during an October 2025 Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, when Attorney General Pam Bondi was testifying. Texas Senator Cruz was midway through a typically serious exchange about national security when he decided to lighten things up, giving a plug for Kennedy’s new book, How to Test Negative for Stupid.
“I’ll point out, Senator Kennedy has a new book about testing negative for stupid, so I hope I test negative for stupid,” Cruz quipped. “I hope I meet the threshold.”
Without missing a beat, Kennedy fired back: “You do meet it, and I talk, in the book, about the tattoo of the Backstreet Boys on your back.” For a few seconds, the room froze before erupting in laughter.
Bondi’s response
Even Bondi cracked a smile at Kennedy’s dry, Southern-fried delivery, which sparked a brief wave of social media speculation. Cruz, known for leaning into weird viral moments, didn’t deny it. Instead, he doubled down on the absurdity.
“Look, I can’t help that you don’t want to reach young people. I think young people are the future, damn it, and I’ll do whatever steps it takes to reach them,” Cruz shot back, deadpan.
Not wanting to miss out, Bondi added her own twist, referencing recent news about a leaked Spotify playlist: “That would be on Vice President Vance’s playlist, I heard, that got hacked.”
The reference to the late-’90s boy band sent the internet spiraling. Was Ted Cruz secretly a Backstreet Boys superfan? Does he really have a back tattoo?
For the record, Cruz does not have a Backstreet Boys tattoo (at least, none visible to C-SPAN). The exchange was pure satire. And Kennedy has a history of using the Backstreet Boys tattoo as a running joke with his colleagues. Still, in the chaotic swirl of Washington politics, a fake boy-band tattoo somehow became the most believable thing to happen all week.
Published: Oct 8, 2025 03:50 pm