John Mayer apologises for Playboy interview

NEW YORK — John Mayer is apologising for his mouth.

The Grammy-winner took to his Twitter page to make amends for his latest inflammatory comments — this time, in the March edition of Playboy.

In it, he calls former girlfriend Jessica Simpson "sexual napalm" and says Jennifer Aniston is a technophobe who wishes she could go back to her career prime in 1998. He also uses the N-word.

On Twitter today he apologised for the racial epithet and said he has to stop "trying to be so raw in interviews."

"It started as an attempt to not let the waves of criticism get to me, but it's gotten out of hand and I've created somewhat of a monster," Mayer tweeted. "I wanted to be a blues guitar player. And a singer. And a songwriter. Not a shock jock. I don't have the stomach for it."

There were plenty who didn't have the stomach for his remarks in Playboy, in which he talked about Simpson's sexuality, his problems with Aniston, his love of porn, why he doesn't date black women and being beloved by the black community.

"Someone asked me the other day, 'What does it feel like now to have a hood pass?' And by the way, it's sort of a contradiction in terms, because if you really had a hood pass, you could call it a nigger pass,'" he said, then added: "But I said, 'I can't really have a hood pass. I've never walked into a restaurant, asked for a table and been told, 'We're full.'"

Mayer said he should have never have used the N-word in any context and will never say it again.

"And it's such a shame that I did because the point I was trying to make was in the exact opposite spirit of the word itself. It was arrogant of me to think I could intellectualise using it, because I realise that there's no intellectualising a word that is so emotionally charged," he said.

The racial comments were hardly the only explosive comments in the interview. He said he still loved Aniston, but then noting their age difference (she just turned 41), he said: "I can't change the fact that I need to be 32."

He also said she didn't appreciate new technology: "The brunt of her success came before TMZ and Twitter. I think she's still hoping it goes back to 1998. She saw my involvement in technology as courting distraction. And I always said, 'These are the new rules,'" he said.

Of Simpson, he talked about her sexual ability, and said: "That girl, for me, is a drug ... That girl is like crack cocaine to me."

In the interview, he also explained why he didn't date black women, comparing his genitals to "a white supremacist."

Mayer — known for his loose tongue — has made a habit out of outlandish comments. Last month, he gave an interview with Rolling Stone where he talked openly about his love life, including sex with other women — and himself.

- AP