“That asshole”: the reason Janis Joplin hated Jim Morrison with a passion
As two members of the infamous 27 Club, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison’s names are often flung together. Their early deaths cast them both as tragedies of their time and casualties of 1960s hedonism and misadventure. But if someone were to go back and tell Joplin how often she’s been spoken of in connection with The Doors singer, she would hate it, considering how much she hated the man.
Music history is littered with feuds. Some start off the back of something big, like Paul McCartney and John Lennon falling out and fighting over the management and split of one of the world’s biggest bands. Some are more petty, like the catty Battle of Britpop that saw Oasis and Blur scrapping in the news or any of John Lydon’s snarky digs at his fellow musicians. With so many arguments and fights across decades and generations, some have managed to go somewhat forgotten, like the fury that burned between Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.
It started off so nicely. One night in the hazy late 1960s, producer Paul Rothschild was having a party up in the hills of Los Angeles. As the reigning king and queen of the countercultural world at the time, both Morrison and Joplin were invited along, with Rothschild planning to introduce them. He thought they’d hit it off, that they might bond over their mutual love for music and their blossoming fame. And, initially, he was right.
It was an instance of mutual infatuation. Joplin was enthralled by Morrison’s charm and edge, and Morrison was excited by Joplin’s wild energy and carefree spirit. But that only lasted a few short drinks, and soon, a drink was being smashed over The Doors singer’s head – the first of two instances that would result in Joplin grabbing a glass and going in on the musician.
The second would come later during a jam session at the infamous dive, The Scene. It was a place where music icons went for late-night drinks and had a chance to mess around on instruments without any pressure on their performance. One night in 1968, Jimi Hendrix was noodling on stage, Joplin was in the audience and then in walked Morrison, immediately putting the tension on edge. Once again, it ended with a smashed bottle, held in Joplin’s hand and aimed at Morrison’s head.
In both instances, the reason was simple – Jim Morrison was a horrible drunk. Rothschild attests to that, recalling the singer turning into “a cretin, a disgusting drunk” at that first party where the two musicians met. With a few too many drinks in him, all of Morrison’s charm went, and what was left wasn’t a person Joplin wanted to associate with. Turned off by his behaviour, Joplin asked Rothschild to take her home, but once she was in the car, Morrison reportedly reached in the window, grabbed her hair and attempted to pull her back towards him. That’s when the first glass was smashed.
The thing that Morrison clearly hasn’t accounted for was that so much of the wild energy he loved about Joplin was also a real strength. It’s well known that the singer took no shit, demanded respect and was quick to call out anyone that didn’t give it to her. She was a defiant powerhouse who wouldn’t be mistreated by anyone, especially not Jim Morrison.
So when Morrison then wandered into the jam session later down the line, her fuse was short. “Jim swaggered over to where Janis and me were sitting and, without any provocation at all, he just yanked her hair down to the floor,” an audience member recalled of the moment. Having not learnt his lesson the first time, Joplin tried to teach him it again with a second smashed bottle.
Sure, maybe both were leaders of the pack and maybe both were rebellious spirits that seemed like they should align. But the answer as to why Joplin hated Morrison was a simple one: she thought the guy was awful. “If you mentioned Jim’s name, she would say: ‘That asshole’”, a publicist from her label remembered. “She was not going to put up with what she thought was his childish, disgusting, rude behaviour wherever she encountered it. It riled her. She was past giving him a chance.”
