Why did Joey and Johnny Ramone hate each other?
Pioneers of punk they might have been, but like most bands of their stature, the Ramones were not without their problems. Whilst these manifested in various guises, the most prominent, which had the most immense strain on band operations, was that frontman Joey Ramone and guitarist Johnny Ramone hated each other. The pair could not have been more antithetical.
From the moment the two met, Johnny is said to have disliked Joey. Whilst they would find common ground with glam rock and eventually start a culturally significant band, the animosity between the two would be so pronounced in the future that things would eventually fall apart. Much of this had to do with their stark differences in personality and political leanings, with the shy Joey, a liberal with countercultural values and Johnny, a staunch Republican who hated hippie parasites.
Things would likely have trudged along uninterrupted, with the pair co-existing like two opposing global superpowers; however, thanks to a twisted love triangle, the pair’s relationship would be broken without repair. It all started when the then 16-year-old Linda Danielle met the Ramones at New York’s home of punk, CBGB, in 1976. She would later bump into Joey in Los Angeles, and soon after, they would start dating.
Things were so serious for the pair that they got engaged after a few years of a relationship. However, it never went any further, as after a while, Linda and Joey grew apart, and she and Johnny became close. It culminated in her leaving Joey after the guitarist’s unrelenting advances and moving in with him. According to Linda in the New York Post, the Ramones frontman was “heartbroken” that she fell in love with Johnny.
The pair were married in 1984 and stayed together until Johnny died in 2004. She also said that she did not talk to Joey until 1993, when he requested that she not discuss him for a book about the group. The two then had secret irregular contact until he died in 2001.
His brother, Mickey Leigh, told the publication: “Joey was a guy that was very easily intimidated, and John was a guy who was very good at intimidating people.” He also said he was the one who first told Joey about Johnny’s love for Linda.
Despite this great drama, the two would continue touring together for years until Ramones broke up in 1996. Following Linda leaving Joey for Johnny, the pair rarely spoke, which continued until the frontman’s death from cancer. “They came to an agreement where they kind of tolerated each other,” the band’s tour manager, Monte Melnick, told the New York Post. “It’s like a business. You’re working with someone you don’t particularly like, [but] you’re still working there because you like your job.”
It is said that when Joey was in hospital dying from cancer, Johnny refused to call him. The guitarist later discussed the issue in the 2003 documentary End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, saying any attempt to patch things up would have been futile. However, he did add that he was depressed for a week after Joey’s death.
Linda Ramone revealed to the New York Post that she heard about her ex-fiancée’s death when going to Lisa Marie Presley’s for Easter. Understandably, when she heard the news, she broke down. Whilst in a state of hysteria, she was met by some of her husband’s famous chutzpah: “I started hysterically crying, and Johnny was like, ‘If you’re gonna get that crazy over him dying, I can’t imagine what you’d be like if I died.’ The truth is, I had a breakdown when he died.”
Famously, Joey Ramone was so heartbroken by Linda eloping with Johnny that he allegedly even wrote one of the band’s best-loved songs about it. This is the 1981 classic, ‘The KK Took My Baby Away’, although its meaning is contested.
