6 grudnia w Waszyngtonie rozdano Kennedy Center Honors, prestiżowe wyróżnienia dla artystów zasłużonych dla amerykańskiej kultury. Nagrodę z rąk prezydenta Baracka Obamy otrzymali Bruce Springsteen, Robert de Niro, Mel Brooks, Grace Bumbry i Dave Brubeck.
Jon Stewart wyraził swoje uznanie dla Springsteena mówiąc: "I'm not a music critic, nor historian, nor archivist, but I am from New Jersey. And so I can tell you what I believe. I believe that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby... and that baby was Bruce. However, the era was not quite ready for a same-sex, inter-racial couple, and they abandoned the child somewhere between Exit 8A and 9 on the New Jersey Turnpike. It was at this point that he was raised by feral vaudevillians and vagabond troubadors. It was not long after that he became The Boss..."