Jon Bon Jovi Is So Upset at Kim Kardashian’s Success

Although Jon Bon Jovi has undeniably profited off the celebrity-obsessed culture of recent decades, he has no patience for the reality TV stars who have achieved the same level of fame as him without releasing more than three decades’ worth of rock hits. In an interview over the weekend with the Australian talk show The Sunday Project, per ET Canada, Bon Jovi pinpointed the Kardashian-Jenner family and the Real Housewives franchises—even, apparently, that of his beloved home state of New Jersey—in his criticism of the current culture. “I think it’s horrific that we live in that world, and I can tell you I’ve never given 60 seconds of my life, ever, to one of those Housewives of Blah Blah and Kardashians,” he said. “I don’t know their names. I’ve never watched 60 seconds of the show, it’s not for me.”

Fair enough: There’s no law mandating that we all keep up with the Kardashians (yet). Rather than stopping there, however, Bon Jovi went on to seemingly take a jab at Kim Kardashian West’s early-2000s sex tape with the singer Ray J. “What’s gonna be in your autobiography? ‘I made a porno and, guess what, I got famous.’ Fuck, sorry, I’ll pass,” he said, then offered up his preferred definition of fame. “Go and write a book, paint a painting, act, study, sing, play write,” he said. “Fame is a by-product of writing a good song.” For the record, while it’s true that Kardashian West has, to our knowledge, never written a “good song,” she has launched a multimillion-dollar cosmetics company, starred on her family’s reality show for 15 seasons and counting, and successfully overturned a wrongful conviction.

It’s unclear whether Jon Bon Jovi’s hatred of reality television excludes If I Wasn’t a Rock Star, the unscripted series he was set to produce and star in back in 2015, or if that disdain is the reason the show still languishes in preproduction to this day. Regardless, his criticism will likely have little, if any, effect on Kardashian West, who’s been fending off attacks like these for years now. In 2016, when she appeared on the cover of Forbes due to her high-earning namesake mobile app and vast social media following, she joked, “#NotBadForAGirlWithNoTalent.”

Later, in a 2017 cover story for Interview, she spoke further about being consistently underestimated. “I used to say, ‘I love being underestimated.’ But now when I hear, ‘They’re so not talented’—10 years into it—I’m kind of like, ‘OK, give a girl a little respect.’ If I’m so not talented, if I do nothing, then how is my career my reality?” she said. “I don’t mind being underestimated because it does fuel me. But after a while, I do feel like, ‘C’mon, you can recognize a little bit.’”

Related: Cleveland, Ohio, Is More Than Just the Birthplace of a Baby Kardashian