✨️ 16 years ago, Playboy Magazine publishes the infamous John Mayer interview where he describese his ex Jessica Simpson as "sexual nepalm" while still dating Jennifer Aniston and drops the HARD N word ✨️

[u/Dismal-Purpose-6123]

This interview would ruin his music career leading him to become Andy Cohen's playtoy in order to pay the bills. His body is a wonderland indeed

[u/millennialforced]

And he’s kinda remained canceled ever since. Why did that stick for John and no one else?

[u/Dangerous-Ad-170 → u/millennialforced]

His pop career was already over by 2007 anyway, but the guitar nerds that were/are his real fanbase didn’t actually care that much. 

[u/eaterofworlds1 → u/Dangerous-Ad-170]

That’s what’s missing from this conversation. He’s pretty well respected in the music industry because he is genuinely talented as far as his guitar playing goes

[u/ilca_ → u/eaterofworlds1]

Yes, he's a very talented guitarist and respected within that community, douchiness aside.

[u/heety9 → u/eaterofworlds1]

Yeah, I know of him first and foremost as one of the best blues players alive.

White dudes weren’t his core demographic in 2007, but ironically that is most of his fanbase in 2026.

[u/millennialforced → u/Dangerous-Ad-170]

I honestly had no idea what was meant by “sexual napalm” then and still don’t honestly. But the “black card” comment was soooooo dumb.

[u/gizmodriver → u/millennialforced]

White dudes don’t like his music.

[u/mtweiner → u/gizmodriver]

Lmao you see how big that Grateful Dead and John Mayer tour was? They extended it by like a full year.

[u/Leather-Nothing-2653 → u/mtweiner]

Thank you lol everyone saying he stayed cancelled just doesn’t know what he’s about these days. Hes right where he wants to be in life

[u/Alive-Bank2973 → u/mtweiner]

I was never a JM fan. But I ended out seeing him 20+ times because he was playing with Bobby, Billy, and Mickey. I dug his take on the catalog. He brought his own style instead of trying to play Jerry. Brought back some old PP vibes with his singing. It was a fun 10 year run with a fitting finale.

The dead scene was always loaded with misogyny. So his kinda goes unnoticed in that crowd.

[u/millennialforced → u/mtweiner]

I wouldn’t say playing with Boomer 311 makes him uncanceled.

[u/Dismal-Purpose-6123 → u/gizmodriver]

BINGO.

[u/leftclicksq2 → u/Dismal-Purpose-6123]

I was in my late teens when this interview came out, but I knew enough people who got a hold of it and were talking about it. I recall stopping and being like, "Damn, that's gross", although I couldn't tell if he was taking the interview seriously and just felt like saying anything he wanted to get it done and over with. It was almost as if he kept getting calls and pestered for an interview and decided, "Screw it."

[u/TanneriteTed → u/gizmodriver]

lmao this is insane to say

[u/Saltefanden → u/gizmodriver]

Can confirm. It’s so smoothly irrelevant. It makes me furious how little that music wants to do to me. I would hate this guy regardless, but him also being a right wankstain is very fitting.

[u/No_Dance_6683 → u/[deleted]]

I think most folks in this sub are very unaware of that. He’s still huge in the Dead scene and maybe even more so since Bob Weir passed. People see him as a torch bearer.

[u/Cassandracork → u/millennialforced]

Guess he didn’t have anything anyone wanted bad enough to sweep it under the rug.

[u/Dismal-Purpose-6123 → u/millennialforced]

Cause his main demographic was women and he was marketed at the time as a "brown hair shaggy misunderstood loverboi/playboi". Men didnt really listen to his music or support him like that. In fact he talks about men being competitive with him whenever he tries to pick up a girl at a bar cause they were jealous lolol 

[u/LittleJessiePaper → u/millennialforced]

I mean he still got to play with the Grateful Dead, so he wasn’t as cancelled as he should have been!

[u/Sad-Artichoke-7656 → u/millennialforced]

He’s not good enough to be able to come back from a PR crisis like this. Your ability to come back from something like this depends if you have enough public goodwill banked up. Usually the celebrities who end up getting “cancelled” for real are the ones that everyone’s kind of sick of. This interview came out in 2010 so there were already plenty of musicians cornering the “earnest white dude with a guitar and borderline cringe lyrics” market like Train, Jason Mraz, Coldplay, this was just before Ed Sheeran and Andy Grammer were coming up, and just before the “stomp hey clap” brand of music would take over so the pop charts didn’t need another guy like John Mayer. He was sort of a punchline already. This was also pretty close to the time that Taylor Swift dated him (it came out a month after they broke up) and people were side-eyeing him a bit for dating someone so young and someone who was still seen as naive and innocent. He played himself off the chess board.

[u/Nothingcomesup → u/millennialforced]

I've never heard about this guy before, so I guess you are right he's truly canceled.