5 deeply cringeworthy moments from John Mayer's interview with Ronan Farrow

John Mayer is very, very good at two things: making music that wins Grammys, and saying things that make himself extremely difficult to like. After an uncharacteristically long period of radio silence, the singer-songwriter lifted his “self-imposed interview ban” to sit down with MSNBC’s Ronan Farrow — Today aired an excerpt from their conversation this morning.

On second thought, maybe that ban wasn’t such a bad idea after all.

1. The musician explains the reasoning behind his voluntary press embargo:

“I went, ‘All right, dude, you did a couple interviews where you were out of touch, and you were being a ham, and you were basically break-dancing into a nitroglycerin plant.'”

John Mayer definitely addresses himself, out loud, as “dude.” I know this in my heart.

2. Though his very public romantic life has often made him a tabloid target, Mayer tells Farrow that he “absolutely” does not consider himself a womanizer. Fair enough. Then he launches into… this.

But when you’re crafty, and you’re clever, and you go, ‘Well, I’m just going to be as strange as they think I am,’ and then you lose — number one you’re not playing music anymore, number two you’re not feeling anything honestly, number three you’re not saying anything honestly.'”

What? Are? You? Talking? About?

3. Mayer quit Twitter in 2010 (he’s back now), because he couldn’t stand people constantly telling him how “great” his work is.

“I’m a recovered ego addict and the only way that I can be sure that I don’t relapse is to admit that I constantly have this ego addiction, every day.”

Fortunately, he discovered an old-school alternative.

“I check the mirror, the original Twitter.”

4.  Farrow asked Mayer what, if he had the chance, he would say to his younger self.

“That guy is really, really talented but I don’t want to be anywhere near him when that thing goes off.”

I’m not sure he understood the question.

5. “It’s like a therapy session every time I talk to you,” Farrow says, which — in classic John Mayer form — he somehow interprets to mean that he’s the shrink and Farrow is his patient:

“Thank you, man. That’ll be $325. Insurance doesn’t cover it.”

More from this interview will air Saturday at noon on MSNBC.

Molly Fitzpatrick is senior editor of Fusion’s Pop & Culture section. Her interests include movies about movies, TV shows about TV shows, and movies about TV shows, but not so much TV shows about movies.