John Mayer has always been viewed as the bad boy of the singer-songwriter generation, but after a few years of relative radio silence from the 'Gravity' singer, he's gone and done a new interview with the New York Times, and it is all kinds of cray.
But before we delve into the weirdness of 2017 Mayer, let us first take a wee walk down memory lane, to have a look at the Mayer of the early noughties.
He's dated everyone from Taylor Swift, to Jessica Simpson to Jennifer Aniston, and all reports of his behaviour during these relationships has been kinda dodgy.
Taylor Swift was driven to writing 'Dear John' about him, after all.
Which is surprising, considering he's written corny AF songs like 'Your body is a wonderland'.
Hands up who would gag if a man told you 'your body is a wonderland'? It's up there with a 47-year-old saying 'I'm a skater' or a first date telling you 'I make soundscapes.'
Anyway, we digress.
John Mayer is the man who brought us such beautiful quotes as, 'I am the new generation of masturbator...I've seen it all. Before I make coffee, I've seen more butt holes than a proctologist does in a week.'
Or, 'For me, it has never been about fucking lots of girls. I could have fucked a lot more girls in my life if I hadn't been trying so hard to get them to like me. If I have a conversation with a really hot girl that lasts all night and she says, 'Wow, I had no idea I was going to like you this much,' that is the equivalent, for me, of getting laid.'
What a sweetheart.
In fact, the entire of John Mayer's Playboy interview from 2012 reads like en excerpt from David Foster Wallace's book, Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
In it he calls Jessica Simpson 'sexual napalm' and says some racially dubious stuff, 'Not to say that my struggle is like the collective struggle of black America. But maybe my struggle is similar to one black dude's.'
We could go on.
And we will.
But in 2017, John Mayer has somehow out f***boyed himself, with a brand new interview in The New York Times, which he undertook to promote his Katy Perry break-up album.
One of the first singles on the album is about the pop singer and it's called, 'I still feel like your man'.
He told the mag, 'And by the way, it's a testament to the fact that I have not dated a lot of people in the last five, six years. That was my only relationship. So it's like, give me this, people.'
On one hand, this is kind of sad because Perry has dated (and married on one occasion) both Russell Brand and Orlando Bloom since Mayer, but also kind of like, back off man, it's been three years, you know?
In the new interview, Mayer delivers a few classic lines.
Ready to roll your eyes into oblivion?
He says he's really ready to start a family, 'I wish there was somebody to throw me the 40th...I want the baby with the protective earphones.'
And that he has been living out of a hotel so that he doesn't live in another bachelor pad.
He wants the next house he buys be a family home: 'I want to say, 'We'll take it'...I'm right on time for my career, and I'm running late for my life.'
In his new music video, there is a heavy Japanese influence, but he's confident he isn't being racist, 'Part of cultural appropriation is blindness...I'm on the right side of the line because it's an idea for the video that has a very multiethnic casting, and nobody who is white or non-Asian is playing an Asian person.'
And with no further ado, here is the every-random-japenese-reference-in-four-minutes video you've been waiting for.
Don't you wish you had the confidence of your average white man?
The real zinger of the interview is this line about his newfound sobriety, 'I'm actually very thoughtfully entering cannabis life.'
We have no words.
Daisy Murray is the Digital Fashion Editor at ELLE UK, spotlighting emerging designers, sustainable shopping, and celebrity style. Since joining in 2016 as an editorial intern, Daisy has run the gamut of fashion journalism - interviewing Molly Goddard backstage at London Fashion Week, investigating the power of androgynous dressing and celebrating the joys of vintage shopping.
