Martina Navratilova has slammed the founder of Rolling Stone magazine Jann Wenner after he was removed from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame due to his offensive remarks about Black and female musicians.

The controversy began while Wenner was promoting his new book "The Masters", which features interviews with several music legends, including Bob Dylan, John Lennon, Bruce Springsteen, Mick Jagger, and Jerry Garcia.

However, the book notably does not contain any Black or female artists, something which Wenner was questioned about in his promotional interview with The New York Times. In response, Wenner said that female musicians were not "articulate enough on this intellectual level."

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Wenner's offensive remarks

"The selection was not a deliberate selection. It was kind of intuitive over the years; it just fell together that way. The people had to meet a couple criteria, but it was just kind of my personal interest and love of them. Insofar as the women, just none of them were as articulate enough on this intellectual level.

"It’s not that they’re not creative geniuses. It’s not that they’re inarticulate, although, go have a deep conversation with Grace Slick or Janis Joplin. Please, be my guest. You know, Joni was not a philosopher of rock ’n’ roll. She didn’t, in my mind, meet that test. Not by her work, not by other interviews she did. The people I interviewed were the kind of philosophers of rock," Wenner said.

The 77-year-old then went on to give the same reasoning for why he chose to exclude Black male artists from the book.

"Of Black artists — you know, Stevie Wonder, genius, right? I suppose when you use a word as broad as “masters,” the fault is using that word. Maybe Marvin Gaye, or Curtis Mayfield? I mean, they just didn’t articulate at that level," he continued.

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Navratilova slams Wenner following Hall of Fame removal

As a result, Wenner was removed from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.

"Jann Wenner has been removed from the Board of Directors of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Foundation," the Hall's Foundation announced, as reported by HuffPost.

Following this, 59-time Grand Slam champion Navratilova added her thoughts on the matter by slamming Wenner's comments.

"Wow- a raging racist and misogynist -add a homophobe and you've got a trifecta..." she wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Martina Navratilova

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Wow- a raging racist and misogynist -add a homophobe and you’ve got a trifecta…🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ huffpost.com/entry/jann-wen…

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