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Jann Wenner, the co-founder of Rolling Stone magazine, has been removed from the board of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, which he also helped found, one day after an interview<\/a> with him was published in The New York Times in which he made comments that were widely criticized as sexist and racist.<\/p>\n The foundation \u2014 which inducts artists into the hall of fame and was the organization behind the creation of its affiliated museum in Cleveland \u2014 made the announcement in a brief statement released Saturday.<\/p>\n \u201cJann Wenner has been removed from the board of directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation,\u201d the statement said. Joel Peresman, the president and chief executive of the foundation, declined to comment further when reached by phone.<\/p>\n But the dismissal of Mr. Wenner comes after an interview with The Times, published Friday and timed to the publication of his new book, called \u201cThe Masters,\u201d which collects his decades of interviews with rock legends like Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen and Bono \u2014 all of them white and male.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the interview, David Marchese of The Times asked Mr. Wenner, 77, why the book included no women or people of color.<\/p>\n Regarding women, Mr. Wenner said, \u201cJust none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level,\u201d and remarked that Joni Mitchell \u201cwas not a philosopher of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll.\u201d<\/p>\n His answer about artists of color was less direct. \u201cOf Black artists \u2014 you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right?\u201d he said. \u201cI suppose when you use a word as broad as \u2018masters,\u2019 the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn\u2019t articulate at that level.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Wenner\u2019s comments drew an immediate reaction, with his quotes mocked on social media and past criticisms unearthed of Rolling Stone\u2019s coverage of female artists under Mr. Wenner. Joe Hagan, who in 2017 wrote a harshly critical biography of Mr. Wenner, \u201cSticky Fingers<\/a>,\u201d cited a comment by the feminist critic Ellen Willis, who in 1970 called the magazine \u201cviciously anti-woman<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n In a statement issued late Saturday by a representative for Little, Brown and Company, the publisher of his book, Mr. Wenner said: \u201cIn my interview with The New York Times I made comments that diminished the contributions, genius and impact of Black and women artists and I apologize wholeheartedly for those remarks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201c\u2018The Masters\u2019 is a collection of interviews I\u2019ve done over the years,\u201d he continued, \u201cthat seemed to me to best represent an idea of rock \u2019n\u2019 roll\u2019s impact on my world; they were not meant to represent the whole of music and its diverse and important originators but to reflect the high points of my career and interviews I felt illustrated the breadth and experience in that career. They don\u2019t reflect my appreciation and admiration for myriad totemic, world-changing artists whose music and ideas I revere and will celebrate and promote as long as I live. I totally understand the inflammatory nature of badly chosen words and deeply apologize and accept the consequences.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Wenner founded Rolling Stone in 1967 with the music critic Ralph J. Gleason and made it the pre-eminent music magazine of its time, with deep coverage of rock music as well as politics and current events. Much of it was written by stars of the \u201cnew journalism\u201d movement of the 1960s and \u201970s like Hunter S. Thompson. Mr. Gleason died in 1975.<\/p>\n Mr. Wenner sold the magazine over a series of transactions completed in 2020, and he officially left it in 2019. Last year, he published a memoir, \u201cLike a Rolling Stone.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Wenner was also part of a group of music and media executives that founded the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983, and inducted its first class in 1986; its affiliated museum, in Cleveland, opened in 1995. Mr. Wenner himself was inducted in 2004<\/a> as a nonperformer.<\/p>\n The Rock Hall has been criticized for the relative few women and minority artists who have been inducted over the years. According to one scholar, by 2019 just 7.7 percent<\/a> of the individuals in the hall were women. But some critics have applauded recent changes, and the newest class of inductees<\/a> includes Kate Bush, Sheryl Crow and Missy Elliott, along with George Michael, Willie Nelson, Rage Against the Machine and the Spinners.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n