The shoe designer has had his share of controversies, but his blunt answers on a podcast have made him a man of the moment. “It’s nice to be appreciated,” he said.
Steve Madden, the eponymous founder of the famous shoe brand — and a man with a somewhat complicated history — said he had never seen anything quite like this in his 35-year career. He did an interview with the “Cutting Room Floor” fashion podcast that was posted online last week, and the reaction on social media (and beyond) has been overwhelmingly positive.
“Usually people are like ‘what do you want from a con man?’” he said in a phone interview on Wednesday.
But this time, “people were calling me and they’re like, ‘Did you read the comments?’” he said. “Some people want me to run for president.” He referred to the controversies and struggles he has been a part of over the years before pausing and adding “It’s nice to be appreciated.”
Political office isn’t in his future, but later in the phone interview he said that he would consider running “for the president of the board in my building” after all this positive attention.
In the podcast interview, Mr. Madden and the host, Recho Omondi, touched on a range of topics, including his past white-collar crimes and the current government. Clips of the interview have been viewed by millions of users on TikTok, and Ms. Omondi’s Patreon, which is where the podcast is posted, received “thousands” of new subscribers, she wrote in a recent post.
In the days after the interview was released, stock in the Steve Madden brand rallied to its highest point in a month, and many TikTok users noted they were going to buy his shoes. In an emailed statement, the company said Google searches for “Steve Madden” were up over 60 percent and website visits from organic search had increased by 10 percent.