Does Nikki Haley Really ‘Love Music?’ Jezebel Investigates.

Although I was not able to find any of Haley’s playlists, she shares what she’s listening to very regularly. On multiple occasions, she’s declared just how “obsessed” she is with Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s “Shallow.” Her love of music got her a gig as a talking head in a forthcoming Joan Jett documentary. When she was ambassador to the United Nations, she regularly posted short playlists of what was in her earbuds on her train rides back and forth from New York City.

In the heyday of Facebook, Haley often participated in the long lost moody art of posting song lyrics to your profile page. In 2012, two years into being the governor of South Carolina, she posted the lyrics to Adele’s “Rumour Has It”—a passive joke aimed at Stephen Colbert. Four years later, she tweeted out the lyrics to the same song (this time, for no reason).

She told Marie Claire, “Music motivates me. When we have bill signings, we’ve got music playing.” Frankly, I’m inspired by her insipidity, a relationship to music hardly more complex than a preteen’s.

Haley has been contradictory in her beliefs about the intersection of politics and music. She’s opportunistically taken on Aldean’s dog-whistle of a song, yet has tweeted multiple times about keeping music out of politics. Though, when sharing Miley Cyrus 2017 song “Malibu,” she wrote, “Now before people start hating, I don’t select my music or movies by judging the artist’s political beliefs. I just like what I like.” I’m curious if that apolitical approach to music shifted after “Eye of the Tiger” songwriter Frankie Sullivan told Haley, “don’t use my fucking song” on the campaign trail.

I suppose it makes sense that Haley claims to want to keep politics out of music. Hardly any of the music she listens to feels political in any way. among her favorites are Maroon 5, Darius Rucker, Train, Boston, Post Malone, Harry Styles, The Lumineers, Baha Men, Steve Miller Band, and Poison. The majority of music in rotation in Haley’s life is devoid of extremes. It’s music that’s already playing—or is destined to be—on a Sirius XM station called something like “Rock ‘n Chill.”

It’s not that I even find any one of these artists or groups to be offensively bad, but it is certainly suspicious to be enthusiastic about The Lumineer’s hit “Ho Hey,” or to tweet Adele lyrics at 9 a.m. on a Monday. Cumulatively, her music taste paints a picture of someone trapped in the repetitive and bleak performance of a “fulfilled conservative woman.” To claim loving this sort of banal music a crux of your personality? Upsetting, though more importantly: revealing.

So yes, Nikki Haley does indeed love music. But I feel comfortable stating that on the whole, she likes bad music, which makes perfect sense—because she is a bad person. Thus concludes this Jezebel investigation.