Who is Jann Wenner? Net worth and all you need to know amid removal from Rock and Roll Hall of Fame following controversial remarks

American magazine magnate Jann Wenner, best known for being the co-founder of Rolling Stone, has been fired from his position on the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation's Board of Directors following his controversial remarks. On September 16, a rep from the foundation issued a statement to media outlet Rolling Stone, saying:

“Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation.”

No other reason or explanation was given to the publication. In an interview with The New York Times, published on September 15, the 77-year-old personality made some unsavory comments about female and Black musicians.

While speaking to journalist David Marchese, Jann Wenner - who is promoting his book, The Masters - was asked why he did not include any people of color or female artists in his material. To this, he said:

“It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni [Mitchell] was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll."

In his book, Wenner, who has a net worth of $700 million as per CoopWB, included interviews with influential musicians like Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Pete Townshend, and John Lennon, but no female artist or person of color. Continuing about Joni Mitchell, Wenner said:

“She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock. Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as ‘masters,’ the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level."

---

Jann Wenner said the musicians featured in his book wrote about "deep things"

Further justifying his argument, Jann Wenner said the musicians featured in his book The Masters sang about deep things and articulated them in their work.

“I mean, look at what Pete Townshend was writing about, or Jagger, or any of them. They were deep things about a particular generation, a particular spirit and a particular attitude about rock ’n’ roll. Not that the others weren’t, but these were the ones that could really articulate it.”

Rolling Stone was started by Wenner in 1967, and he served as its editor until 2019. The magazine's CEO is his son, Gus Wenner. PMC owns a majority stake in Wenner Media, and Jann Wenner is the creative head of that company. Rolling Stone's parent company is PMC.

Marchese questioned the objectivity of his statement, to which Wenner claimed that he had formed his opinion that black musicians such as Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, and Curtis Mayfield couldn't "articulate" on the same "level" as the white musicians he had interviewed over the course of his career based on reading interviews with or listening to their discographies.

Eventually, Wenner stated that his own interests were the most important.

"You know, just for public relations sake, maybe I should have gone and found one Black and one woman artist to include here that didn't measure up to that same historical standard, just to avert this kind of criticism. Which, I get it. I had a chance to do that. Maybe I'm old-fashioned and I don't give a [expletive] or whatever."

As per Rolling Stone, Wenner issued a lengthy apology after his interview was published and said that he would accept all the consequences.