Jack White Denies Using Heroin After Joke Gets Taken out of Context

Jack White has denied using heroin, after a joke he recently made in an interview was drastically taken out of context. White was speaking to The Irish Times about his new album with the Raconteurs, and made the quip. Music news outlet Spin caught the comment and quickly ran a story claiming that White admitted to doing heroin, and that his addiction caused the band’s new album to be delayed.

White has since fired back, saying in a statement, “I’ve never done heroin or any other illegal drug in my life and anyone close to me could confirm this. If you’d actually read the article in full, you could see that I was joking. I suppose SPIN never lets the facts get in the way of good clickbait.”

He went on to clarify a few other misconceptions about himself, confessing, “I don’t hate people who own cell phones, or never allow one near me, or hate ALL technology etc. Stop painting with such a wide brush. Just because I don’t own a cell phone in an attempt to lead a healthy life doesn’t mean I hate all technology.”

“Though you’d love me to be the Luddite that provides you with cyber laughs ’til the electric cows come home, I hate to break the myth by stating that I listen to digital music, I drive an electric car, and I typed this boring response on my computer,” he added.

Concluding his statement, White wrote, “I encourage people to lead their own healthy lives and find ways to engage in things that inspire one another rather than bring them down. If you love music and the arts, I think your organizations should start to earn to do the same thing, or at least pretend you love music rather than looking to please your advertisers with clicks.”

The comment that caused the premature headlines came from White joking, “Well, when Brendan gave up alcohol, I started doing heroin, so that delayed things.” In their original reflection of the moment, The Irish Times clearly stated that White made this comment “deadpan,” but the seemed to be left out in the subsequent articles by other outlets.

“It’s funny, I’m a big believer that things happen that are supposed to happen — not in any sort of religious or mystical way, but in a ‘human nature’ kind of way,” White also said in the previous interview. “Why didn’t we record an album five years ago? Well, it just wasn’t the right — it wasn’t like we were all in a room together staring at each other, saying ‘What the hell? Why aren’t we recording?’ So at the moment that it does happen, you think ‘This is amazing! It feels perfect.’ Yeah, it would have been nice to do this a few years ago, but I think it’s better that it’s happened now.”

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