In March, Kip Winger revealed on the Appetite for Distortion podcast that Metallica‘s James Hetfield apologized to him for that scene in their “Nothing Else Matters” video where Lars Ulrich throws a dart at his photo. Now, Winger’s come to an understanding with the creator of the Winger-bashing content on Beavis & Butt-Head.
During the original MTV run of Beavis & Butthead, the boys’ nemesis Stewart Stevenson always wore a “Winger” T-shirt, which Winger says was harder to laugh off than the Metallica thing. “Apparently they tried a few different names on the Stewart T-shirt, and mine was the one that stuck,” Winger tells Yahoo!. He adds that he became “the guy that was singled out from the whole industry, really, because my name was on Beavis & Butt-Head.”
When MTV revived Beavis & Butt-Head in 2011, Winger says, “They wanted permission [to use the Winger name/logo on Stewart’s shirt] this time, which was very ironic, because they didn’t ask my permission the first time — which was somewhat of an admission of guilt, really!”
Winger says he’s not a “vindictive person,” but he private-messaged Judge on Facebook and asked him to chat.
“He was nice enough to email me and we just discussed it,” Winger tells Yahoo!. “It wasn’t anything other than me trying to take the high ground, like, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna hate on you for life for this.’ And I did give them permission — and they paid me! I thought, ‘Well, f*** it. It would be weird not to be on there now, after all this time.’”
While Winger, 62, still plays with his band, he’s now a Grammy-nominated classical composer as well.
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