No, Toby Keith hasn’t recorded a song to benefit Syrian refugees

Reports that country singer-songwriter Toby Keith is donating proceeds from sales of a new single to resettlement efforts for Syrian refugees are, in fact, fiction.

The Oklahoma singer’s spokeswoman told the Los Angeles Times on Friday that there was no such recording forthcoming, despite reports widely circulated on the Internet and over social media outlets.

The bogus report that Keith would donate proceeds from a new charity single titled “You’re Welcome in My House” began with an article on a parody website similar in tone to the Onion. Still, several news outlets, and many Facebook users, picked up the item and passed it along as legitimate news.

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Not that Keith might not consider such an effort. Although he generated a polarized debate with his musical response to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York with his song “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American)”, in which he sang “We’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way,” Keith has not engaged in anti-immigrant rhetoric.

In a 2009 interview with CNN in which he was asked about the issue of “illegal aliens,” Keith said, “I’ve been around Mexicans my whole life, and they are wonderful people. They’re very family-oriented, very religious -- a lot of them -- they have great family values. They’re hard-, hard-working people. Somehow we have to secure the border, but it’s not because of the great people who are crossing the border. It’s to protect that border from being infiltrated by radical, extreme terrorists. That’s the only thing I think they need to stop.”

He also seems unconcerned about what is said about him — true or false — on the Internet.

“I’ve learned to embrace the booger-eatin’ nerds that sit around in their underwear and type blogs,” he said in the same 2009 interview. “I’ve embraced that. So I use them to my advantage. They’re going to do it whether I’m a good guy or a bad guy.”

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