As if being a country music star and successful businessman weren’t enough, John Rich has a new mission.
The singer is working to raise awareness about the dangers of child sexual extortion, or “sextortion” – a form of harassment wherein an offender coerces or tricks a minor into sending them sexually explicit images or videos, and then threatens to release the content unless the child furnishes more sexual content or some form of payment. As The Daily Wire reported, sextortion has led dozens of young boys to commit suicide.
On Wednesday, Rich is teaming up with the Department of Homeland Security to host an X Space that he says is the most vital information he’s ever put out on social media. Rich will be joined by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Special Agent Dennis Fetting. It will air live at 8 p.m. Eastern on Rich’s X account, @JohnRich.
7CST tomorrow night, a livestream event with @DHSgov and myself, right here on my @x channel for parents and teens. This is a VERY important presentation if you have kids. Please watch the video for details, and please repost🙏 pic.twitter.com/Fl2RHduTdM
— John Rich🇺🇸 (@johnrich) April 22, 2025
Rich said he’ll be acting as the “sit-in parent on behalf of American parents,” asking all the important questions you’d want to know.
“Spend 60 minutes watching it. It will change the way you perceive what’s going on around your kids,” Rich told The Daily Wire. “It can save your kid’s life. It could definitely save their future.”
Rich has been an advocate for children for years now, testifying before the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2022 about removing pornography and obscene content from K-12 schools in the state. Asked if there was a specific moment he felt he had to do something about child exploitation and abuse, Rich replied: “When I became a dad.”
Still, Rich only learned about child sextortion a few months ago, after his wife and 15-year-old son attended a talk on the subject by Homeland Security Agent Dennis Fetting.
Rich and his wife immediately changed the settings on their kids’ technology. Rich’s marketing mind also kicked in, and he got to work thinking about how he could spread the word to as many parents as possible
“I was astonished not only by what he said, but how my wife reacted to it and my son,” he recalled. “So I went into the DHS.gov site and looked up Know2Protect,” he said. “I read through that and went, ‘This needs to be seen by everybody.’”
Then, he shot Fetting an email.
“I do know Secretary Kristi Noem — but she’s rather hard to get on the phone these days, so I didn’t go to her with this,” he said with a chuckle. “I actually called the local DHS agency in Tennessee and said, ‘Hey, it’s John Rich. Here’s the idea: I wanna get with an agent, do a live stream on X, other platforms as well, where we can get this broad message out.’ I said, ‘I know you’ve got a website, but people are too busy. They’re not gonna go looking up a website. Let’s put it right in front of them and let’s have a conversation, more than a seminar.’”
The Trump administration listened to him, kicked it up the flagpole extremely quickly, and Noem signed on immediately.
“It’s one great thing about the Trump administration — on top of a lot of great things — they’re accessible,” he said, adding that “They want to have a positive impact.”
“They wanna work with you, and they’re listening. They’re listening to the general public.”
“I’m fully aware of the dangers that are out there for our kids right now — it’s totally different than when I grew up,” Rich said. “They are being targeted on apps, video games, social media — places you would never dream of, on innocent-sounding games like Roblox, Minecraft, things like that, where predators are acting like they’re another kid and they’re creating a relationship with your kid, and then they lower the boom, then they start to extort and extort.”
“They do everything from force the kids to send nude pictures of themselves, to take pictures of their parents’ credit cards front and back so they can extort money,” Rich continued. “They threaten them with killing their family, burning their house down, posting the pictures all online.”
“It results in kids, some of them becoming suicidal — it’s a major, major problem,” he said. “So to me, millions of parents needed to hear about this.”
Rich underscored how Homeland Security, in his experience, was eager and open to listening to him and put things into action. He encouraged others to use their platforms in this space. In particular, he called on celebrities to speak out — but he’s not optimistic that Hollywood will rise to the occasion.
“A lot of what Hollywood’s been about is the exploitation of children,” Rich said. “So, they would have to put something out that rebuts their own stances.”
“I mean, that’s just the truth. I’m sorry, that’s hard to hear, but that’s really what it is,” he said. “If you look at the way they sexualize children in Hollywood, that’s not theory anymore. That’s part of the ethos.”
It’s up to parents, Rich said, to educate their children on the dangers of sextortion.
“You put fear into your son or daughter about not playing in the street. Do you put fear into your son or daughter about not talking to strangers, or don’t take a pill if somebody hands you one, or whatever it might be? Of course you do,” Rich said. “That’s part of being a good parent.”
“Well, now it’s time to put fear into them, a healthy fear about what they’re dealing with online, and do not trust anybody that you don’t know personally online,” he added.
Rich hopes that his livestream is just the beginning of a longer conversation, and a continued awareness campaign.
“This needs to be a viral moment in America,” he said. “Parents need to have a viral moment with what’s gonna happen tonight on this live stream. The livestream will be recorded and posted to YouTube and Rumble. It’s gonna live on forever and ever.”
You can watch the X Space tonight, live, at 8 p.m. Eastern, on Rich’s X account.
Related: Dozens Of Teen Boys Take Their Own Lives As Online Sextortion Cases Spike
