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And Finally Artist News
Journey man denies using or celebrating the N-word
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 22 March 2010
Interviews in Playboy have been causing all sorts of trouble of late. Following the backlash to John Mayer’s interview with the magazine, now Journey frontman Steve Perry has hit out at an interview between the mag and comedian Sarah Silverman.
In it Silverman claims that an unnamed rocker had once told her “you’re my favourite comedian – you have the best nigger jokes”. Although the identity of said rocker was not revealed, Silverman said it was the frontman of a big eighties band, and that after the conversation she “stopped believin”. So, not especially hard to guess she was talking about Perry, most famous for his band’s big hit ‘Don’t Stop Believin’.
While acknowledging that he had spoken to the comedian about her use of the N-word, Perry is angry at the suggestion he’d use the word itself, or celebrate her use of it.
Giving his side of the story, he told Rolling Stone: “I’m really shocked. She was so friendly and so nice. I don’t understand why she would go there, it’s so bizarre. I don’t use that word, are you kidding? That’s so derogatory. I walked up to her after the show and I said, ‘I can’t believe that somehow you seem to be getting away with all these slurs and the N-word, I just can’t believe how you’re doing this’, and I looked at my friend and I said, ‘I can’t believe how she’s getting away with this’, and she looked at me and kind of smiled. It wasn’t like I was condemning her or condoning her”.
