John Mayer - playboy.com
Singer/songwriter, John Mayer, saw one of his favorite places on earth, micro-blogging website Twitter, turn against him yesterday (February 10) all thanks to a revealing interview with Playboy magazine.
In the March issue of the adult oriented magazine, Mayer, who is known for being outspoken and brash, might have taken things a bit too far when describing his popularity among blacks. While talking about what it feels like to have a “hood pass” the singer made one of the biggest mistakes possible: using the N word.
“Someone asked me the other day, ‘What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?’ And by the way, it’s sort of a contradiction in terms,” the singer explained to Playboy contributing editor Rob Tannenbaum during the interview. “Because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a n—-r pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass?”
Just hours after the full Q&A was posted on playboy.com, public fallout began and Mayer saw his name shoot to one of the top trending topics on Twitter due to the outrage.
Hoping to get things under control, he quickly issued an apology, and explanation, for his use of the racial slur.
“I am sorry that I used the word. And it’s such a shame that I did because the point I was trying to make was in the exact opposite spirit of the word itself,” John said in a series of tweet. “It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualize using it, because I realize that there’s no intellectualizing a word that is so emotionally charged.”
Realizing his approach to giving interviews causes more problems than they solve, he vows to change. “And while I’m using today for looking at myself under harsh light, I think it’s time to stop trying to be so raw in interviews…It started as an attempt to not let the waves of criticism get to me, but it’s gotten out of hand and I’ve created somewhat of a monster.”
John Mayer is currently out on tour promoting his latest album, 2009′s Battle Studies.
[...] Mayer took his Twitter apology for his explosive comments in an interview with Playboy — which included dropping a racial [...]