I’ve always had the feeling that John Mayer is a kind of an ass. Lucky for me, in a recent interview with Playboy, Mayer has now successfully turned that suspicion into absolute certainty.
Once the interview hit the Internet last week, gossip sites buzzed about the musician’s outlandish statements. Some often re-quoted gems were his comments about how his “d*** is sort of like a white supremacist” (but he’s got “a Benetton heart”), “if [I] really had a hood pass, [I] could call it a n***** pass,” and “wouldn’t it be cool to download food?” The piece is also filled with several references to masturbation, famous ex-girlfriends and banging groupies. Yeah, he went there.
The first thing that needs to be addressed here is that Mayer is clearly stoned… Really stoned. And the ladies at Jezebel.com who have published several articles in response to the interview, such as Anna N., agree.
“I think we all knew this guy in high school,” Anna said. “The guy who always wanted to talk about, like, what does “time” really mean? Except that while that guy might have been a little pretentious, he was basically harmless. And Mayer’s interview reveals something more f*cked up than a little stoner logic.”
She’s probably referring to Mayer’s references to race, as well as the several times that he came off like a loud-mouthed womanizer, like when he called Jessica Simpson “napalm, sexual napalm.” He also uses the word “fag” when telling the story of when he made-out with Perez Hilton in a club, prompting GLAAD to ask for an apology.
Ironically, Mayer pointed out early in the interview that he is fully aware that people already view him as a “douche-bag.” The term started being used in conjunction with his name when he started getting noticed by the tabloids for bagging a series of Hollywood bombshells like Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston. The way he brought this up, to me, made it seem like while he is annoyed by this fact, he doesn’t care enough about his tarnished image to do anything about it. He just wants to be a musician. But I’m not convinced.
After the article came out, it was reported that Mayer began crying during a gig and saying that he “quit the media game.” While it may have been a ploy to somehow fix his damaged image, I feel that Mayer’s reaction was sincere.
If Mayer’s undeniable musical talent was overshadowed by his tabloid presence, it was only amplified by his popularity on social networking site Twitter. Mayer’s witty and sarcastic asides made him one of the most followed celebs in the so-called “Twitter-verse.” Though his new album, Battle Studies, was met with stellar reviews, it has no doubt taken a back seat to his social status and partying ways.
It’s hard to know where to begin when responding to the ridiculousness. Sure, he was probably just joking around, but is he really that clueless about how the media operates? Did he really not think that his quotes were going to stir up some big-time controversy? While his romantic lyrics and puppy dog eyes may tempt some to say “poor little famous guy, he’s just a musician, let him play concerts and screw actresses in peace,” when you get right down to it, he was out of line. This incident seems to be the catch-22 of obtaining celebrity status: the money and fame are great, but the minute you screw up, the media is waiting to pounce and rip you apart.
John Mayer should have known better
Published: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2010
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John Mayer should have known that the media would rip him apart after Playboy’s revealing interview, where he discussed his sexual relationships with former girlfriends, amongst other things, was published last week.
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