While biopics always have to sprinkle a bit of fiction into the mix for the sake of drama, comedy, and/or narrative cohesion, there is traditionally a strong intent to make everything in the movies as accurate as possible. When a work is based on a true story, that truth is expected to be honored, as honoring reality is a key part of what makes the subject interesting. That being said, mistakes are made occasionally, and a very funny and specific one has been discovered in the new film Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere.
I don’t think I’m stepping out of bounds by saying that the vast majority of people in the movie-going world don’t know what kind of condiments Bruce Springsteen likes to put on his hot dogs… but there are also apparently people out there who are intimately aware of that bit of trivia, and it’s leading them to point out a “mistake” in the new 2025 movie starring Jeremy Allen White as The Boss. There is a scene in the film where Springsteen expresses that he enjoys mustard when he is downing a frankfurter, but Twitter user GenZBruceFan has video evidence of that not being true:
In Deliver Me from Nowhere, Bruce Springsteen says his favorite hotdog condiment is mustard but in real life, Bruce Springsteen HATES mustard so much he did a whole yap about it during a show 😭 https://t.co/FihgyWI1NW pic.twitter.com/78MrLWT0laOctober 26, 2025
Personally speaking, I love mustard, and I don’t think anything goes better with a hot dog than a zig-zagging line of the spicy brown stuff… but that concert footage shows that there is absolutely no wiggle room on the subject for Bruce Springsteen. Addressing the audience in an unidentified stadium venue, the New Jersey legend tells a story about going to a luncheonette to order a sandwich, and it weirdly sees him going on a mini rant about how he doesn’t like any variant of the yellowest condiment:
Don’t give me no fucking Grey Poupon. I don’t like any mustard. I don’t like it on my hot dog, I don’t like it on my sandwiches. No.
I actually appreciate how there is absolutely no wiggle room here. When he starts the story, you might think, Oh, well just because he doesn’t like mustard on a ham sandwich doesn’t mean that he doesn’t like mustard at all. But then he makes it clear that he definitely isn’t putting it on hot dogs either, and that officially renders Deliver Me From Nowhere comically incorrect.
So what does Bruce Springsteen actually like to put on his footlong? I wasn’t able to find that specific information while doing research while writing this article – but I did find an article in the Asbury Park Press from last year about the rock and roll icon visiting a restaurant called Max’s Bar and Grill to pick up five dozen hot dogs for an event that he was attending. Per the manager, he was provided with dogs, sauerkraut, relish and buns… but no mustard.
For those of you who can forgive the movie this tiny, humorous mistake, Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere arrived in theaters this past Friday and arrived in fourth place at the box office after earning a strong response from critics – with particular praise for the turn by Jeremy Allen White.