Jann Wenner, the co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, was removed from the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which he also helped found, the day after an interview with him was published in the New York Times were widely criticized as sexist and racist.
The foundation — which inducts artists into the Hall of Fame and was the organization behind the creation of its affiliated museum in Cleveland — made the announcement in a brief statement released Saturday.
“Jann Wenner has been removed from the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,” the statement said. Joel Peresman, the foundation’s president and chief executive officer, declined further comment when reached by telephone.
But Mr. Wenner’s firing comes after an interview with The Times published on Friday, coinciding with the release of his new book entitled “The Masters,” which details his decades of interviews with rock legends such as Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger and John collected Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Bono – all white and male.
In the interview, David Marchese of The Times asked Mr. Wenner, 77, why the book did not contain any women or people of color.
Regarding women, Mr. Wenner said, “Simply none of them were articulate enough at that intellectual level,” noting that Joni Mitchell “was not a philosopher of rock ‘n’ roll.”
His response to artists of color was less direct. “From black artists – you know, Stevie Wonder, a genius, right?” he said. “I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘master’, the mistake is in using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just couldn’t articulate themselves at that level.”
Mr. Wenner’s comments sparked immediate backlash, his quotes were mocked on social media and previous criticisms of Rolling Stone’s coverage of female artists under Mr. Wenner were brought to light. Joe Hagan, who wrote a highly critical biography of Mr. Wenner, “Sticky Fingers,” in 2017, quoted a commentary by feminist critic Ellen Willis, who wrote the magazine in 1970, “viciously misogynistic.”
Mr. Wenner did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday evening.
Mr. Wenner founded Rolling Stone in 1967 with music critic Ralph J. Gleason and built it into the preeminent music magazine of its time, with extensive coverage of rock music as well as politics and current events. Much of it was written by stars of the “New Journalism” movement of the 1960s and 1970s such as Hunter S. Thompson. Mr. Gleason died in 1975.
Mr. Wenner sold the magazine in a series of transactions in 2020 and officially left it in 2019. Last year he published his memoirs, “Like a Rolling Stone.”
Mr. Wenner was also among a group of music and media executives who founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983 and inducted its first class in 1986; The attached museum in Cleveland opened in 1995. Mr. Wenner himself was admitted as a non-performer in 2004.
The Rock Hall has been criticized for the relatively few women and minority artists inducted over the years. According to a scientist, in 2019 only 7.7 percent of the people in the room were women. But some critics have welcomed the recent changes, and the latest inductees include Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott, as well as George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine and the Spinners.