John Mayer has been on a self-imposed exile for the past two years, explaining that after “a couple of dumb interviews” he needed to learn how to be “an adult.”
Mayer sat down for an interview on “Ellen” today, and reveals to host Ellen DeGeneres why he has been so absent from the press since 2010. Mayer says that two high-profile interviews that year led him to step back from his desire for fame.
In a Rolling Stone cover story in March of 2010, Mayer had said, “I have masturbated myself out of serious problems in my life” and added that he was looking for “the Joshua Tree of vaginas.”
A month later, Mayer appeared in Playboy and went for broke, talking about his famous ex’s Jessica Simpson and Jennifer Aniston.
Of Simpson, he said, “That girl, for me, is a drug … Yeah, that girl is like crack cocaine to me… Sexually it was crazy. That’s all I’ll say. It was like napalm, sexual napalm.”
In regards to Aniston, Mayer said, “I’ll always be sorry that it didn’t last. In some ways I wish I could be with her.”
Now, Mayer explains that the interviews led to a long period of self-evaluation.
“I did a couple of dumb interviews and it kind of woke me up,” Mayer explains. “It was a very strange time and it sort of rocketed me into adulthood. It was a violent crash into being an adult,” Mayer, now 34, says. “I’m glad I actually stayed out of the spotlight. Because I think back then I would of said, ‘Give me two weeks or let me get out and do Ellen and let me explain myself.’ It was like, ‘No, idiot. Go away. Be 33 and 34 instead of 28 for the fourth year.'”
Mayer said he has quietly spent the past two years in Montana. The singer had gone on a trip with friends to the state, and ended up calling a real estate agent while there.
“The plan that originally gets you out of high school and your hometown, in front of people. I think that plan was over,” he said. “I had done it. I just sort of lost my head for a little while.”
Mayer is now returning to the spotlight with his album, “Born and Raised,” out May 22.
“I think it’s the most honest,” he said of the album, before revealing that he thinks it’s his best to date.