Back in December, Ted Nugent commented on Rolling Stone’s list of “100 Greatest Guitarists.” He took issue with some of the musicians listed including iconic rocker Joan Jett. “How do you list the top 100 guitar players and not list Derek St. Holmes?” Nugent asked during one of his YouTube livestreams. “How do you do that? You do that by lying. The same way you get Grandmaster Flash in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame. You do that by lying. You have to be a liar. You have to have shit for brains and you have to be a soulless, soulless prick to put Joan Jett… [I] love Joan. Some of my greatest memories include lesbians. I love the lesbians; it’s a cocktail of wonderment. [I] love Joan Jett — ‘put another dime in the jukebox, baby’; great rock and roller — but as a top 100 guitar player, but you don’t list Rickey Medlocke [Lynyrd Skynyrd] or Dave Amato [REO Speedwagon]. Really? Or Dick Wagner? Dick Wagner and The Frost from Detroit. Or Mark Farner? Mark Farner from Grand Funk Railroad. Joan Jett is on the list but not Mark Farner? Grandmaster Flash is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame but not Grand Funk Railroad? By the way, if Grandmaster Flash is in the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame and Joan Jett is on the list of top 100 guitar players, then I’m Caitlyn Jenner’s boy toy.”
Nugent again later commented to The Real Music Observer: “I started off by praising Joan Jett’s genuine shitkicker, down-to-earth, all-American rock and roll credentials. I started off by praising her. I even saluted the lesbian thing. Here’s the question: how on God’s good green earth could someone listen to what I say and then claim it’s about hate and about knocking and belittling? Joan’s awesome. I mean, The Runaways. Her whole, ‘Put another dime in the jukebox, baby.’ I mean, she’s the real rock and roll McCoy. But belonging on the ‘top 100 guitar player’ list anywhere on planet earth, even ‘Boring’ Stone before genuine virtuosos of the six-string? That was my statement. I was only using Joan as an example because she happens to be a perfect one.” Nugent tried to explain he wasn’t dissing Jett. “There was no hate,” he said. “I don’t have any hate. I had my hate amputated when I was five years old. No hate — all love and compassion and honesty. That’s what drives people crazy: my honesty.”
Jett responded in a new interview with NME. When the reported said Nugent insisted Jett shouldn’t be on the list, she responded, “Neither should he. Is that his implication, that he should be on the list instead of me? Well, that’s just typical — it’s what I’ve dealt with my whole life, being written off. Ted Nugent has to live with being Ted Nugent. He has to be in that body, so that’s punishment enough. He’s not a tough guy. He plays tough guy, but this is the guy who sh*t his pants — literally — so he didn’t have to go in the Army.”
