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John Mayer apologises after using racial slurs in interview

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Updated on July 6, 2023

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Several well-known black musicians voiced their dissatisfaction of John Mayer’s use of a racist slur in a recent interview with Playboy magazine, and Mayer later issued an apology.

Mayer, 32, stated to a reporter: : “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, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass. Why are you pulling a punch and calling it a hood pass if you really have a hood pass? But I said, ‘I can’t have a hood pass. I’ve never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, ‘We’re full.'”

On Wednesday afternoon, John Mayer responded to the mounting criticism by writing a string of tweets, the first of which contained an apology for his use of a racial epithet.

“Re: using the ‘N word’ in an interview: I am sorry that I used the word,” Mayer tweeted. “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. 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.”

“Again, because I don’t want anyone to think I’m equivocating: I should have never said the word and I will never say it again,” Mayer tweeted.

The musician expressed regret for his oversharing before reflecting on the subject more broadly and indicated that he might restrain himself in the future. “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. I wanted to be a blues guitar player. And a singer. And a songwriter. Not a shock jock. I don’t have the stomach for it.”

One of Mayer’s followers, @adilla, responded: “Just waiting for @johncmayer to follow up his apology with an announcement that he’s going to rehab. I mean, it kinda worked for Tiger, no?”

Mayer doesn’t have that in mind. He tweeted back: “They don’t make rehab centers for being an a**hole.”

The most recent album by multi-platinum selling singer-songwriter Mayer, Battle Studies, debuted at the top of the US charts. He may be better recognized outside of his native country for dating a number of famous people, including Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston.

The singer attempted to dispel the stereotypes of him as a womanizer and “douche bag” in the profanity-filled interview for Playboy’s March issue, a portion of which apparently took place as Mayer sipped malt whiskey.

“I’ve been trying to prove to people I’m not a douche bag by not dating, by keeping my name out of ‘Us Weekly’,” he said.

Nonetheless, he referred to his brief romance with Simpson in 2006 as an addiction. “That girl was like crack cocaine to me… Sexually, it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm,” he said. He also said said his “biggest dream is to write pornography”.

Despite being branded a womanizer in the media for relationships with Hollywood stars like Simpson, Aniston and Jennifer Love Hewitt, Mayer admitted to Playboy that he was not interested in having sex with black women, describing his penis as “sort of like a white supremacist.”