David Crosby Apologizes to Neil Young, Daryl Hannah
Eight months after causing a major rift with Neil Young when he labeled his girlfriend Daryl Hannah a “purely poisonous predator,” David Crosby went onto the Howard Stern Show and offered a heartfelt apology.
“I was completely out of line,” he said. “I have screwed up massively. Daryl Hannah never wound up in a Texas prison. I’m screwed up way worse than that girl. Where do I get off criticizing her? She’s making Neil happy. I love Neil and I want him happy.”
Crosby said he believed the comments were off the record, but added, “That’s neither here nor there.” “Daryl, if you’re out there, I apologize. Where do I get off criticizing you? There are people I can criticize: politicians, pond scum. Not other artists that have gone through a hard life, same as me. She hasn’t had it easy either.”
Stern said he thought that Crosby made the comments out of love for his bandmate, and Crosby agreed. “I was worried that he was going to be taken advantage of,” he said. “But the truth is that’s not my place to judge. That’s the bottom line. It’s not my place to judge other human beings like that. That was judgmental and stupid and careless and I regret it a lot.”
Crosby said that he did call Young shortly after the comments surfaced. “He wanted me to print a retraction,” he said. “I said, ‘I don’t know about that.’ The first thing that I did was apologize right away. I said, ‘Neil, I shouldn’t have shot my mouth off. I’m sorry.'” He went on to say that he never spoke directly to Hannah. “But I’m doing that right now,” Crosby said. “Daryl, I apologize. I was wrong. I have no place to stand to do that. I have no right. I haven’t earned that right. I’m the guy that wound up in prison, not her.”
It’s unclear how Young feels now about the situation, but when he appeared on the Stern show last October, he was so angry at Crosby that he tried to avoid saying his name, referring to their group as “uh…Stills, Nash and Young.” He also said that another CSNY reunion would never happen.
“We were together for a long time. We did some good work. Why should we get together and celebrate how great we were? What difference does it make?,” Young said. “It’s not for the audience. It’s not for money, either. When you play music, you have to come from a certain place to do it and everything has to be clear and you don’t want to disturb that. I like to keep the love there, and if the love isn’t there, you don’t want to do it.”