The war of words between Ted Nugent and Joan Jett has gone another round, as the Motor City Madman responded to Jett’s recent criticism.
“Joan, I love you. It’s real rock and roll, awesome, plus I love lesbians. I think it’s cool,” Nugent declared May 4 via his YouTube channel, insisting that Jett is “the real McCoy.”
However, the same thing that Nugent complained about months ago — that Jett was included in Rolling Stone’s 2003 list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time — continues to be an issue.
“Joan Jett can’t be on the top 100 guitar players in the history of rock and roll before Rik Emmett of Triumph. She can’t be,” Nugent explained in his video. “And Joni Mitchell’s on the list but not Derek St. Holmes? Not [Lynyrd Skynyrd’s] Ricky Medlocke? Not [Whitesnake’s] John Sykes? Not Chris Duarte? Not Jimmy McCarty?”
Nugent continued listing off guitarists he felt were unjustly omitted, including Styx’s Tommy Shaw. “I love you Joan, but you’re not a better guitar player than any of these guys,” he declared, “and she just attacked me.”
The attack Nugent referenced happened just days ago. In a conversation with NME, Jett was asked about Nugent’s opinion that she doesn’t belong among rock’s greatest guitarists.
“Is that his implication… that he should be on the list instead of me?” Jett asked in the interview. “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.”
Jett further added that Nugent is “not a tough guy” and referenced an infamous interview where the guitarist claimed to have defecated in his own pants to avoid being drafted into the army.
Nugent was clearly perturbed by Jett’s comments and insisted he never meant to offend her. “I just said there are a lot of killer guitar players, and Joan is a good guitar player,” he explained. “She makes great music, it’s not adventurous as I like, but she’s awesome. So then she got wind of it and just viciously attacked me personally, [claiming] that I was jealous because I was not on it. I never mentioned I should be on it.”
Though Nugent continually insisted he had “nothing but nice things” to say about Jett, he was more heated in a follow-up video.
“Joan, would you just relax?” Nugent said (as transcribed by Blabbermouth). “Maybe the plastic [surgery] has gone to her brain… I don’t know. I just didn’t think she was that stupid. I never said anything about how stupid she was. I didn’t think she was stupid; now we know how stupid she is.”
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