Playing Bruce Springsteen’s 'Born in the USA' Led to Candace Cameron Bure Roasting — Why?

Bruce Springsteen
Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for The Bob Woodruff Foundation

Candace Cameron Bure is not only being roasted by Jojo Siwa. Her TikTok video, featuring the controversial song by Bruce Springsteen, "Born in the USA" also garnered her a heap of criticisms, starting from Hilary Duff's husband, Mattthew Koma.

What is with the song?

Over the weekend, Hilary Duff's husband Matthew Koma called her out on TikTok for a selfie-style video that the actress posted of herself. In the video, she was wearing Fourth of July-themed attire while Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." played in the background.

"I mean, c'mon, would you expect anything less from me?" the actress, 46, said in the original clip, appearing in a shirt emblazoned with "God Bless America" and a "God is Good" baseball cap, obviously proud of herself, and oblivious to the impending criticisms.

She even giggled with delight before adding, "Happy Fourth of July!"

"Yeah that, the song you're playing? Yeah, it's about veterans coming home from Vietnam and being treated like s-t. Yeah, it's not about the Fourth of July," Koma, 35, said of the video.

Indeed, the era-defining smash ballad by Bruce Springsteen has a darker message than its cheery tune and unquestionably stirring chorus would suggest.

Comments from TikTok users followed suit. Some said they are disappointed with her. Some said they expected more from her.

@candacecameronb Tell me you're DJ Tanner without saying you're DJ Tanner. Happy 4th of July !!! #independenceday ♬ Born In The USA - Instrumental - The Hit Crew

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The 72-year-old singer himself commented on the song's roots in a television interview from the 1970s.

This song fit within a certain social environment, he said. He added that America had shifted to the right, and at the time, the Republicans were essentially aiming to co-opt anything American," he explained. "Born in the U.S.A" therefore was intended to be a rebellious song - a song to rebel against the government, not celebrate the Independence of the country.

More recently, in the final episode of the podcast "Renegades: Born in the U.S.A." produced by Barack Obama in conjunction with the New Jersey native, Springsteen commented on the song's emotional ambivalence over American identity.

"This is a song about the pain, glory, shame of identity and of place," the music icon said, referring to how the lyrics tell the story of a fictional Vietnam veteran who returned from war only to be disregarded and fee disoriented about being patriotic to a country that has changed so much - and not for the better.

"So it's a complex picture of the country. Our protagonist is someone who has been betrayed by his nation and yet still feels deeply connected to the country that he grew up in," Springsteen continued, which confirmed what Hilary Duff is saying now.

Springsteen also provided his thoughts on "why the music has been appropriated," which is further and particularly relevant to Koma's criticism of Cameron Bure's decision to use the song in her TikTok.

"One is because it was so powerful; two is because its iconography was so fundamentally American," he added.

"But it did demand of you to hold two contradictory ideas in your mind at one time: that you could both be very critical of your nation and very prideful of your nation simultaneously. And that is something that you see argued about to this very day."

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