Stars Who Can't Stand Dave Navarro

Dave Navarro featured prominently in two of the biggest bands in alternative rock, when that genre ruled pop culture. The guitarist was an original member of the influential 1980s Los Angeles band Jane's Addiction, and after providing his signature sound to hits like "Mountain Song," "Been Caught Stealing," and "Jane Says," he joined the Red Hot Chili Peppers in the mid-1990s, adding his goth-metal-grunge shred to that group's messy punk-funk.

Navarro stood out from all the other alternative rock guitarists for his musicianship, appearance, and charisma, and he'd go on to star in numerous reality shows, from "Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen + Dave" (chronicling his brief marriage to actor-model Carmen Electra) to the tattoo art competition "Ink Master." Through all those forms of entertainment, Dave Navarro's tragic real-life story includes some adversarial relationships and bitter feuds. He's got some famous enemies out there, and they're even people he's worked with intimately. Here are all the big stars who just don't like Dave Navarro very much.

Part of the the reason Jane's Addiction stopped making music is because singer Perry Farrell and guitarist Dave Navarro couldn't safely co-exist for long. Following the release of 1990's "Ritual de lo Habitual," Jane's Addiction hit the road. "That 13-month tour behind 'Ritual' was half the reason we wound up unable to stand one another," Farrell said in "W****s: An Oral Biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction" (via Rhino). "The other half is that I am an intolerable narcissist who can't get along with anyone." The group was also at odds over substance misuse — at the time, Farrell and drummer Stephen Perkins were actively misusing drugs, while Navarro and bassist Eric Avery were trying to stay sober.

Following the 'Ritual' dates, Farrell decided to throw a farewell tour for his band, which evolved into the traveling Lollapalooza festival. On the very first night of Lollapalooza in 1991, Jane's Addiction's set ended when Farrell and Navarro threw punches at each other onstage, and then Navarro tossed his guitars into the audience so that the show couldn't go on.

The pair came to blows during a concert again, in September 2024. Farrell, reportedly deeply irritated by poor sound levels and tinnitus, shoved and screamed at Navarro as he played. The guitarist held him back, Farrell tried to land a punch, then Avery subdued Farrell by force while Navarro walked off the stage. That ended the concert, and within a couple of days, the tour was canceled.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers ran through multiple guitarists in the 1990s, with Dave Navarro joining in 1994. In 1995, the band released "One Hot Minute," a dark and heavy record reflecting Navarro's involvement. The guitarist and the band disassociated in 1998, having made just one album, and when announcing the split Navarro emphasized that it was so he could spend more time on his other band, Spread, and that there were no hurt feelings involved.

In 2018, Navarro admitted that he was nudged out of the band when former and now-sober guitarist John Frusciante wanted to return. During the 1997 Jane's Addiction reunion tour, which featured the Chili Peppers' Flea on bass, Navarro relapsed and continued to heavily misuse drugs after the concert run completed. "It got really bad," Navarro said on the "Dark Matter" podcast (via Alternative Nation), theorizing that Flea had a tough time watching a bandmate misuse drugs in the same way that deceased early Chili Peppers guitarist Hillel Slovak had done. "Then I finally show up for a Chili Peppers rehearsal and we had a tour booked and I honestly couldn't play a f***ing note." After toppling into some boxes, Navarro knew the Red Hot Chili Peppers didn't want him anymore. "I wasn't going to be able to get it together. So, they went in a different direction," he said.

In 1983, the then-15-year-old Dave Navarro's mother, Connie Navarro, was murdered in her home by an ex-boyfriend, John Riccardi. After the case was featured on "America's Most Wanted," Riccardi was arrested in 1991, convicted of murder, and received the death penalty, later commuted to life in prison. In 2018, Geraldo Rivera made an episode of his show "Geraldo Rivera's Murder in the Family" – a true crime series that examines the killings of relatives of famous people, with TV crews revisiting the scene of the murder – about the death of Connie Navarro, completed without the requested permission of Dave Navarro. 

"I find it really disappointing [that] Geraldo Rivera's new show would ask me to participate in an episode about the tragedies in my life and when I said no, they decided to run it anyway with inaccurate facts and total abandon for the triggering effect a program of this nature could have on the families," Navarro wrote on Instagram (via Blabbermouth).

"Dave Navarro has already told his own story, so he wasn't particularly keen to have the story told again," Rivera — a respected news anchor who some also consider to be a terrible person – told TV Insider in response to Navarro's complaints, alluding to the musician participating in the 2015 documentary "Mourning Son." "Sometimes it is very difficult for someone who has suffered these traumas to open doors that contain so much pain," he added.