Bobby Bones Admits Buying "Go Away Bobby Bones" Billboards

In an interview with The Washington Post, radio personality Bobby Bones said he spent nearly $13,000 of his own money on Nashville billboards that famously stated, “Go Away Bobby Bones.”

“I launched a massive negative PR campaign against myself to garner sympathy,” Bones told reporter Emily Yahr in a story published Friday (May 13). Bones moved to Nashville in 2013 and his initial broadcasts on WSIX received mixed reviews for a variety of reasons — partially because he had no background in country music and also because he asked unusual questions while talking to artists on air. Amid the criticism, he came up with the idea to create the billboards.

In the interview, Bones referred to the campaign as “pretty desperate measures to take to get more ratings.” Yahr also wrote, “No one guessed it was him.”

Bones writes about the incident in his new memoir, Bare Bones, to be released Tuesday by Dey Street Books.