Morrissey: NME toned it down, says Jonze

When Morrissey's management started complaining about NME's report on an interview he did with Tim Jonze, they claimed that Tim Jonze had emailed them saying:

"Hope you're well. I should mention that for reasons I'll probably never understand, NME have rewritten the Moz piece. I had a read and virtually none of it is my words or beliefs so I've asked for my name to be taken off it. Just so you know when you read it."

The implication being that NME took Jonze's work, and reworked it to make the November interview spawn a monster.

Late yesterday, Jonze posted to the Guardian's website, saying the opposite is true:

So before I continue, there's something that needs to be pointed out. Every single quote attributed to Morrissey is 100% correct, there was no provocation at all, and Morrissey was given a chance to apologise or clarify his views with a second telephone interview. At no point did he back down. Although Morrissey as a person was charming, courteous and (until this point) a joy to interview, I found comments such as "England's been thrown away" and "These days you won't hear a British accent in Knightsbridge" woefully ignorant. I wrote a piece saying that Morrissey - although liberal in many of his views - was using the language of the BNP and Enoch Powell when it came to immigration. In the piece I mentioned that his comments likening the UK to that of "going to Zagreb and hearing nothing but Irish accents" were offensive as they compared British ethnic minorities to tourists. I also said he was being overly nostalgic for a Britain built partly on empire and imperialism and that someone as well travelled as Morrissey had no excuses for such comments.

Yes, he had his name removed from the article - but because it was weakened, not because it was made stronger, says Jonze:

The piece was very critical and NME decided to tone it down, something I didn't agree with. They showed me several rewritten versions, some of which were very soft on Morrissey, one that was quite critical. None had any of my points or arguments in them and none of them were written in my voice. Furthermore, I hadn't even seen the finished version before it went to print (I still haven't seen it, as I'm currently writing this from the surreal surroundings of a beach internet cafe in Thailand). For these reasons, the byline was removed.

Jonze admits that the "byline debate" has been a "PR coup" for Camp Morrissey, although since his email to the management was the spark for that sideline, he can't really complain overmuch. There remains a mystery of why, though, of why he sent that email - as Suzanne points out in the comments on the Guardian piece, it seems a little odd to drop an email to someone along these lines:

"Hey, Merck, I would have written a piece ripping your client to shreds, but the NME is pussy-footing around with it, so I asked my name to be taken off of it. When you see the article, please remember that the NME didn't let me portray what a scum I thought Morrissey was. Have a great day."

It all makes Morrissey's threatened court case seem even more unlikely: can you really complain a magazine ripped you to shreds when the person who interviewed you insists you were being treated with kid gloves?

[Thanks again to Duncan]