Jimmy Carter says his son smoked pot with Willie Nelson on White House roof
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 09/13/20


© CNN


Former President Jimmy Carter reveals in a new documentary that his son James Earl "Chip" Carter sat on the roof of the White House and smoked marijuana with country music legend Willie Nelson.

People magazine reports that Carter made the admission in a new documentary, "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President." Carter confirmed the anecdote described in Nelson's autobiography, though Nelson had hid the identity of Carter's son in the book in which he referred to his companion as a "servant" in the White House.

"When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me," Carter says, according to People. "And he says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants in the White House. That is not exactly true — it actually was one of my sons, which he didn't want to categorize as a pot-smoker like him."

Carter famously made political alliances with many well-known musicians during his White House tenure, including Nelson and the Allman Brothers. In the documentary, he reportedly also dismissed criticism of his meetings with musical groups, pointing to the influence such groups had over their fans.

"I was doing what I really believed, and the response I think from the followers of those musicians was much more influential than the people who thought [of] that being inappropriate for a president," Carter says, according to People.

Nelson is an outspoken advocate for left-leaning causes and in 2018 supported former Texas Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D) in his Senate bid against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas).