22 Scathing Rock Star Breakup Quotes

When a band parts ways with a prominent member in their lineup, feelings can often get quite raw.

In the case of Dave Mustaine, the angst regarding his 1983 exit from Metallica continued to fester for decades. He told Dave Navarro that he wasn’t a huge fan of his replacement, Kirk Hammett. In fact, he claimed to have “nailed” Hammett’s girlfriend on his way out of the band, during an appearance on on Jane’s Addiction guitarist’s Spread TV internet show in 2008.

Former Poison guitarist Richie Kotzen scoffed at the notion that he’d gained any benefit from his time with the group in the early ‘90s. “Being in Poison helped me grow my bank account for a year,” he said, “but grow as a musician? Are you serious? Being in Poison helped me forget I was a musician.”

Joe Perry pointed to continuing tour cancellations and other dysfunction when he left Aerosmith in 1979. “All you’ve got to do is fucking see what’s going on and who’s doing what. That’s why I say let the music do the talking,” he told Sounds. “I don’t feel any link to the band at all. From what I’ve heard, I wouldn’t want to see them because I would hate to be disappointed.”

Quite often, these comments can come as a surprise to the others involved. Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich said he felt like the rivalry between Metallica and Mustaine’s Megadeth was unnecessarily perpetuated by a third party. “There was this big Metallica/Megadeth thing in the press, and then there was Lars and Dave hanging out, kind of doing their thing on the side – which was at times a little odd,” Ulrich told Revolver in 2011. “You’d go, ‘Wait a minute. I’m supposed to not like this guy ’cause that’s what’s in this week’s Kerrang!’ It was kind of weird.”

That’s just the beginning. We’ve collected 22 scathing rock star breakup quotes below, with a bit of history about each situation.