(Credits: Far Out / Kreepin Deth)
Sat 31 January 2026 6:00, UK
When you’re as prominent in the rock world as James Hetfield, you’re bound to come across someone who rubs you the wrong way.
And when you’ve been through the grinder of reinvention as many times as Hetfield has, you’re also bound to come across people who view you the same way. Most of the time, this just concerns people who consider Metallica sell-outs, who, by shifting their sound and moving away from their thrash metal roots, became the ultimate commercial pandering.
This was, of course, a matter of opinion, especially when you consider that many of the records that said criticisms involve – The Black Album, for one – actually ended up defining the band’s entire career and vision, proving that, when an artist takes risks and commits themselves to artistic progression, the payoff is often much better than the shortterm scrutiny.
Funnily enough, though, Hetfield has made similar comments about other artists in the past. Like many heroes of the hard rock and metal scene, Hetfield has very specific opinions about what it means to be a real, authentic artist, even during times when people – your own audiences, sometimes – see you as anything but.
After all, the band’s Load and Reload are often viewed as drastically different from anything Metallica is capable of, to the point where people thought they were changing their sound and approach to maintain relevance. However, it ended up having the opposite effect, and yet, some of the band’s members, Hetfield included, stand by the fact that the decisions they made were completely honest and authentic.
That said, and likely because of these challenges, Hetfield knows how to spot something that’s off from a mile away. He’s spoken about his dislike for certain bands and artists in the past, once saying that bands like Rage Against the Machine and Limp Bizkit didn’t have anything special to say. On Rage, he felt they were just “some guy kind of pissed off, telling you his opinion”.
Back in 2021, Hetfield also dished his two cents about a certain rock legend, Jon Bon Jovi, calling him “pretentious” to the point of finding him unbearable. As he admitted to Kerrang, “He’s just so pretentious. Fuck, just looking at his picture, there’s something not right, something so fooling about it. He’s pulling the wool over a few folks’ eyes, it seems to me. His Versace ad, the movie star… God, I can’t take it!”
Hetfield isn’t alone in his aversion to Bon Jovi, and he probably thought that his famous Versace ad was anything but the poster for real, authentic rock ‘n’ roll. Plus, the hate for Bon Jovi has been common across rock since their breakthrough, with Hetfield arguably leading the charge after an incident in the late 1980s when both bands were on the Monsters of Rock concert.
At one point, Bon Jovi’s helicopter reportedly hovered over the stadium while Metallica were playing, and pretty much drowned out the noise entirely. Afterwards, Hetfield sported his famous ‘Kill Bon Jovi’ sticker on his guitar, vowing a lifelong commitment to despising his controversial rock peer.
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