Rolling Stone Cofounder Jann Wenner Removed From Rock Hall of Fame Board Just One Day After Comments Defending Lack of Diversity in His Book

(Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)

Co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation’s board just a day after a New York Times interview was published in which, in response to outrage over the lack of diversity in his new book, offered a defense that was itself the subject of even greater anger and controversy.

Wenner spoke with David Marchese, a former Rolling Stone editor, for the New York Times interview in which he made controversial comments in defense of the fact that his new book The Masters features interviews only with White male musicians and artists.

The Rolling Stone co-founder interviewed and spoke over the years with music legends such as Jerry Garcia, Mick Jagger, and others, and his new book includes some of those conversations — Seven, altogether, all with White men. The fact that no women and no Black artists were included became a subject of controversy, of course, and he was asked about it by the New York Times for an article published on Friday. His answers in that interview sparked an even greater furor.

On Saturday, the Hall of Fame issued a curt, single-sentence statement on Wenner, who co-founded the organization, the Hollywood Reporter was first to report: “Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.”

President and CEO of the foundation Joel Peresman declined to comment to the New York Times on Wenner’s removal, Ben Sisario reported for the paper on Saturday.

In the article published on Friday, Marchese asked Wenner about the fact that his book features seven White men, and that the book’s introduction, as Marchese phrased it, “acknowledge(s) that performers of color and women performers are just not in your zeitgeist.”

In the back-and-forth that followed, Wenner said that, “Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level,” and that none of the female or Black musicians met his “criteria” as “philosophers of rock” rather than just creative geniuses, along with several other statements that naturally provoked a major reaction. A reaction he seemingly anticipated.

“You know, just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn’t measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism,” he said at one point.

In reporting on the Hall of Fame’s decision, the NYT‘s Sisario on Saturday wrote:

Mr. Wenner’s comments drew an immediate reaction, with his quotes mocked on social media and past criticisms unearthed of Rolling Stone’s coverage of female artists under Mr. Wenner. Joe Hagan, who in 2017 wrote a harshly critical biography of Mr. Wenner, “Sticky Fingers,” cited a comment by the feminist critic Ellen Willis, who in 1970 called the magazine “viciously anti-woman.”

Sisario also noted:

The Rock Hall has been criticized for the relative few women and minority artists who have been inducted over the years. According to one scholar, by 2019 just 7.7 percent of the individuals in the hall were women. But some critics have applauded recent changes, and the newest class of inductees includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott, along with George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine and the Spinners.

This is a developing story and may be updated.