Musicians often like to think of themselves as tortured geniuses.
Unfortunately, some of them have a habit of torturing others.
From online feuds, breakups, racist comments and even murder; you’d be surprised who
made our list of the biggest jerks in the music industry.
Kanye West
American rapper, songwriter and record producer Kanye West became infamous when he interrupted
Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards.
Since then, he's made a habit of storming the stage at awards shows, most recently interrupting
Beck at the 2015 Grammys, but his bad behavior doesn't end there.
In January 2016, West came under fire for shaming ex Amber Rose for being a stripper,
despite having a wife who rose to megastardom because of a sex tape.
Additionally, West has no concept of his own first-world problems.
He begged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg for money when his own net worth is estimated
at $145 million.
"I am a god. Everybody says, 'Who does he think he is?'
"I just told you who I thought I was. A god!"
"I just told you!"
"THAT'S who I think I am."
Looks like West could use a reality check.
Taylor Swift
It's not like Taylor Swift is innocent, either.
She's capitalized on her victimhood since West's infamous 2009 interruption.The following
year, she performed her song "Innocent," reportedly inspired by West, barefoot at the VMAs.
In her personal life, her sob story continues.
She claims she wants to keep her personal life private, yet she documents her numerous
relationships in her lyrics, leaving clues in her liner notes about each song's muse.
Sometimes she's undeniably blatant, like when she called out John Mayer in "Dear John" but
then called him "presumptuous" for assuming the song was referring to him.
Swift has also been rumored to stage photo shoots with her boyfriends.
There's more: she allegedly dissed Katy Perry with her song "Bad Blood," and picked a fight
with Nicki Minaj when the rapper accused the MTV VMAs of being racist in 2015.
Swift can use her own advice and shake it off.
"Shake it off, shake it off!"
Gene Simmons
Kiss frontman Gene Simmons needs to keep his notorious tongue from wagging so much.
When Run-D.M.C. was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Simmons told Radio.com,
"You've got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
Run-D.M.C. in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?
You're killing me.
That doesn't mean those aren't good artists.
But they don't play guitar.
They sample and they talk.
Not even sing."
He also had beef with N.W.A.'s induction, griping to Rolling Stone, "I am looking forward
to the death of rap."
Aside from his beefs with other artists, Simmons is notoriously misogynistic.
In an interview with NPR's Terry Gross, he said he wears a codpiece for one specific
reason.
"The notion is that if you want to welcome me with open arms, I'm afraid you're also
going to have to welcome me with open legs."
He's also faced allegations of sexual assault and battery, making his claim of having bedded
5,000 women "so far" pretty terrifying.
Miley Cyrus
For several years, Miley Cyrus' issues with race have been rather prominent.
In June 2013, songwriters Rock City told Vibe that Cyrus specifically asked them for an
"urban" and "black" sound.
Her notorious trainwreck of a performance at the 2013 VMAs was likened to a "minstrel
show" because of her use of black background dancers with whom she simulated sex and twerked.
She proclaimed her love for "hood music."
And she capitalized on the culture to promote Bangerz in 2013, then promptly ditched it
for her next album, Miley Cyrus & Her Dead Petz in 2015.
Just before she hosted the 2015 VMAs, Cyrus called Nicki Minaj "not polite" in an interview
with Time, and then Minaj set her straight in The New York Times, saying,
"You're in videos with black men, and you're bringing out black women on your stages, but
you don't want to know how black women feel about something that's so important?"
"Back to this b---- that had a lot to say about me the other day in the press. Miley, what's good?!"
Chris Brown
Where do we even begin?
Chris Brown was pretty much squeaky clean until his February 2009 assault of then-girlfriend
Rihanna, leaving her so battered she was almost unrecognizable.
While that was the worst of his behavior, the rest wasn't much better: Two years later,
he hurled a chair into a window when Good Morning America had the nerve to ask him about
the assault.
"Definitely, this ALBUM is what I want them to talk about."
"And not this other stuff that happened two years ago."
In 2012, Brown was in a bottle-throwing nightclub brawl with Drake, reportedly over Rihanna.
He tore ex-girlfriend Karrueche Tran apart over social media when she dumped him after
discovering he'd gotten another woman pregnant when they were together.
This list can go on and on but to sum it up, we don’t see a humanitarian award in Brown’s
future.
Madonna
She may be known as the Queen of Pop, but Madonna has also made a reputation for herself
as the Queen of Bad Taste.
In June 2016, she found a way to make the mass shooting in Orlando all about her, even
including Instagrams of her own face twice in her tributes.
A month earlier, Madge performed a tribute to Prince, who died of an overdose of prescription
drugs.
Her tribute went off without a hitch…except she was toting a handbag emblazoned with the
word "dealer" in her promotional Instagram pic.
We would call this tacky but to a woman who wears cones as an accessory, she might think
it’s just a fashion statement.
Phil Spector
Music producer Phil Spector's credits are impressive: he co-produced the Beatles' Let
It Be album
and George Harrison's 1971 benefit concert for war relief in Bangladesh, which
won a Grammy for album of the year for 1972, and in 1989, Spector was inducted into the
Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Despite these accomplishments in music, the flip side of his life’s album was shady.
In 2009, the legendary producer was sentenced to 19 years to life for the 2003 murder of
actress Lana Clarkson.
During his trial, five women took the stand and claimed that Spector threatened them with
guns.
Spector is most likely the biggest jerk on this list but there is no doubt he has the
worst mug shot.
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