Music

John Mayer is setting the record straight.

The “Your Body Is a Wonderland” singer penned a letter in response to a recent The Hollywood Reporter interview with TV host Andy Cohen, who has maintained a close friendship with Mayer over the years. “Your friendship with Mayer has been the subject of intense speculation,” the reporter, co-editor in chief Maer Roshan, asked, in regards to tabloids speculating the nature of the relationship between openly gay Cohen and openly straight Mayer. “People seem dubious that a straight rock star can have a close, platonic relationship with a gay TV personality.”

In response, Cohen said, “Let them speculate. I honestly love John Mayer, and he loves me. But because we are so affectionate to each other, people don’t know what box to put that in. They assume we are sleeping with each other, which we are most definitely not.”

However, Mayer took it a step further, sending an email to Roshan personally. In his letter, he noted the history of friendships between straight and gay people, and gave the public the benefit of being able to discern that friendship comes in all forms. “I’d like to think they’re sophisticated enough to see a relationship like ours without assuming it must include a sexual component,” he wrote. “That turns the concept of being gay into an ignorantly two-dimensional one, which I know you know it’s not. I don’t question that at all.”

He concluded, “Reinforcing the idea that any gay/straight relationship needs qualification that it’s not sexual devoids everyone involved of their dignity.”

Cohen and Mayer have had an envy-worthy, mutually caring friendship for years, stemming back to 2015 when they went on a road trip together to watch the Grateful Dead, whom they both love. “John Mayer is someone who is very in touch with his emotions He very quickly in our friendship started saying, ‘You know what, I gotta tell you something — I love you,’” Cohen said in a 2022 Table for Two with Bruce Bozzi interview of their friendship. “He is someone to say, ‘I love you and I cherish you and I cherish our friendship’ — just this stuff that straight guys aren’t necessarily supposed to say.”

Read the full letter, via THR, below.

Hi Mr. Roshan,

I read your interview with Andy Cohen, and was intrigued by your line of questioning regarding our friendship. You posited that “your friendship with Mayer has been a subject of intense speculation. People seem dubious that a straight rock star can have a close platonic relationship with a gay TV personality.”

I think this is somewhat of a specious premise. First, there is a long and storied history of “rock stars” (not mocking, just won’t refer to myself as one) befriending gay icons and artists.

Second, I think that to suggest that people are dubious of a friendship like mine and Andy’s is to undermine the public’s ability to accept and understand diversity in all facets of culture, be it in art or in real life. I’d like to think they’re sophisticated enough to see a relationship like ours without assuming it must include a sexual component. That turns the concept of being gay into an ignorantly two-dimensional one, which I know you know it’s not. I don’t question that at all. 

I love intelligent discourse — as I hope you’ll find this email to be — but I bristle at your selectively flimsy logic meant to coax an answer, when the premise itself is so deeply flawed, and quite possibly not even quantitatively true. 

Quite simply, if someone is dubious of a platonic relationship between a straight man and a gay man, I don’t think that shallow a view deserves clarification by anyone with self respect, be it Andy or your publication. Reinforcing the idea that any gay/straight relationship needs qualification that it’s not sexual devoids everyone involved of their dignity. 

Respectfully,
John Mayer