Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Rolling Stone Cover Angers Drake

Philip Seymour Hoffman’s death on February 2 has created a controversial discussion on whether or not the media should openly pay respect to a man’s career and whether or not a celebration of life is glamorizing drug use. Now that it’s been well over a week since Hoffman’s death, everyone has run their tributes and now all we have to deal with is the apparent fall out of some Hoffman tributes.

Singer Drake, who has a penchant for voicing his opinion on everything under the sun, is not a happy camper about a certain tribute given to Hoffman. The actor’s death took precedent over Drake’s Rolling Stone cover, so the singer was bumped in favor of a tribute cover so Rolling Stone magazine could keep up with current news.

According to the singer this wasn’t fair treatment by Rolling Stone magazine, and he has now sworn off doing magazine interviews due to the tribute Philip Seymour Hoffman received. Of getting bumped off of the Rolling Stone cover, Drake said:

“I’m disgusted with that. RIP to Phillip Seymour Hoffman. All respect due. But the press is evil. I never commented on Yeezus for my interview portion of Rolling Stone. They also took my cover from me last minute and ran the issue.”

Later on Drake further addressed his issue with the Philip Seymour Hoffman cover:

I’m done doing interviews for magazines. I just want to give my music to the people. That’s the only way my message gets across accurately.

— Drizzy (@Drake) February 13, 2014

So far Rolling Stone has not released a statement in regards to Drake getting bumped in favor of a Philip’s tribute. Instead of running Drake’s cover, the magazine decided to dedicate a few pages to remembering Hoffman’s life by running interviews with the actor’s closest friends and industry colleagues.

Drake isn’t the only one upset about how much space Hoffman’s coverage is taking up. Slate’s Dear Prudence column addresses an upset person who asked how she can mend fences with colleagues after the person referred to Hoffman as a junkie who “left three children without a father.”

Slate’s Emily Yoffe took this view up to task:

“Society is moving to a place where we recognize this is a terrible illness, one that needs treatment and compassion. That doesn’t mean one simply excuses the terrible things that addicts can do; part of treatment is accepting responsibility for one’s actions. But if Hoffman had been a colleague of yours who had been struggling with addiction, I doubt many of your co-workers would have agreed with your, “Hey, what do you expect—he was junkie” remark.”

Philip Seymour Hoffman had been sober for two decades before he was found dead in the bathroom of his New York apartment.

[Image credit: Debby Wong / Shutterstock.com]