Fred Durst

Fred Durst

William Frederick "Fred" "Polar Bear" Durst (born August 20, 1970) is an American singer, director, producer and actor, well known as the frontman of the band Limp Bizkit.

Early life

Durst was born August 20, 1970 in Gastonia, North Carolina. After graduating from Hunter Huss High School he moved to suburban Jacksonville, Florida in his late teens. After high school, he joined the U.S. Navy to impress his girlfriend and his father, but after he found that Recruit training (Boot camp) was too strenuous for him, he was chaptered out. Upon returning to Jacksonville at age 20, he pursued a career as a tattoo artist. Durst later confessed, "Being in the Navy was like being in prison. I made the biggest mistake of my life."

Limp Bizkit

Limp Bizkit performing live in Paris during the 2009 Unicorns N' Rainbows Tour.

Durst began Limp Bizkit with Sam Rivers and John Otto in 1995 which then led to Wes Borland joining shortly thereafter. DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip hop group House of Pain joined in 1996 which marked the final line-up for Limp Bizkit, they would then go on to record their debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ to see a release in the following year.

Limp Bizkit's first hit, a cover of George Michael's late 1980s hit "Faith", gained traction due to heavy airplay on MTV, especially during the first year of TRL. The band's other major hits include "Nookie", "Break Stuff", "Re-Arranged", "Counterfeit", "N 2 Gether Now", "Take a Look Around", "Rollin'", "My Generation" and "My Way".

Durst has directed most of Limp Bizkit's music videos, as well as videos for Korn ("Falling Away from Me"), Deadsy ("The Key to Gramercy Park"), Cold ("No One"), Puddle of Mudd ("Blurry"), and Staind ("It's Been Awhile", "Just Go", and "Home"), among others.

Durst was ranked 71 in the Hit Parader's Top 100 Metal Vocalist of All Time.

Personal life

Relationships and family

Durst lives in Los Angeles, California, and has two children, a 20 year old daughter, Adriana, from his first marriage, and a 9 year old son, Dallas, from a previous relationship. Durst married Esther Nazarov in July 2009, but divorced after three months.

Sex tape

Durst had a video of him and an unknown woman having sex leaked onto the internet by a repairman who had been repairing his computer. He later sued the website Gawker and nine others for $70 million dollars for publishing it.

Controversy

Live performances

In 1999, certain media pundits chose to portray Limp Bizkit's performance of "Break Stuff" during Woodstock 1999 as a contributing factor in instigating the violence and vandalism which occurred at the festival. When asked to help defuse an already volatile situation by concert promoters, Durst told the crowd, "I don't think you should mellow out. This is 1999, motherfuckers - stick those Birkenstocks up your ass!" According to reports by certain media pundits, in response to the song, concert-goers committed acts of vandalism, tearing planks from the stage and throwing garbage at an MTV crew. At least four women were raped at the concert; one rape was reported by many witnesses to have been committed right in front of the stage during Limp Bizkit's performance. In response to the controversy, guitarist Wes Borland stated:

"OK. Woodstock. Dusty ground for sure, but you’re basing your idea of our involvement there on the media’s slanted view of what happened. We were the poster child, in a nutshell, because we have a song called 'Break Stuff'. The crux of that whole fiasco didn’t take place until the next day, yet news stations everywhere were broadcasting images of our set immediately followed by the fires burning and fences being taken down 24 hours later. We’re going to have to agree to disagree on what happened there, because my view and the popular view (which basically uses us as the scapegoat and excludes a plethora of additional problems: overpriced vendors, ATMs running out of money, alcohol influenced mayhem, and general mob mentality behavior) don’t match up. We never said: 'please fight each other, burn everything, and rape.' We didn’t even allude to it. We did our thing."

At the K-Rock (WXRK) Dysfunctional Family Picnic concert in 2000, Limp Bizkit and Durst were criticized on stage by Scott Weiland of Stone Temple Pilots for taking to the stage an hour late. At the same concert, when Durst took the stage, he erupted in a furious rant about Creed singer Scott Stapp, saying:

"I want to dedicate this next song to the lead singer of Creed.... That guy is an egomaniac. He's a fucking punk, and he's backstage right now acting like fucking Michael Jackson. Fuck that motherfucker, and fuck you too.... And if you want, there's going to be a booth with pillows and blankets for when Creed comes on."

During Creed's set, Stapp responded by saying, "It takes a lot more guts to say something to somebody than from behind their backs."

Durst was also criticized for his comments related to the death of Australian teenager Jessica Michalik, who was crushed to death during Limp Bizkit's set at the 2001 Big Day Out concert in Sydney. Durst claims that he made his concerns about security known days before the incident, but they fell on deaf ears. Durst was videotaped telling the crowd "Safety first, if someone falls down pick them up", but was later criticized by the coroner for "alarming and inflammatory" comments during the rescue effort.

For a week leading up to Limp Bizkit's Summer Sanitarium 2003 concert in Chicago, Mancow Muller mocked Fred Durst on his radio show, inviting fans to attend the concert with anti-Durst placards. These suggestions from Muller were stated in response to Durst's behavior at a Guitar Center competition where hundreds of people showed up to audition for the spot of Limp Bizkit's new guitarist, wherein Durst arrived late, displaying a gesture with his finger to the awaiting crowds, before quickly leaving. When Mancow Muller's fans arrived at the Summer Sanitarium concert event with the suggested placards, therefore openly taunting the singer while booing him and hitting him with refuse, Durst erupted into a profanity-laced tirade, leaving the stage after only 17 minutes of the show. Due to Durst not completing the show, he was eventually sued for breach of contract.

Eminem/D12

In the early 2000s, Eminem was notified while on the Anger Management Tour that former House Of Pain member Everlast had mocked him on a song. Everlast claimed that while passing by Mathers in a hotel lobby, Mathers gave him a "weird look." Taking offense to this, Eminem and D12 quickly began work on a retaliatory song, "I Remember." This prompted Everlast to record "Whitey's Revenge." Eminem and D12 then responded with the song "Quitter." It was reported that long-time friends of Eminem, Limp Bizkit, were meant to be featured on the song, but Durst canceled at the last moment. The record continued its release without featuring Limp Bizkit, causing the Everlast-Mathers dispute to continue. In a TRL interview, Limp Bizkit member, DJ Lethal, made a statement that if Mathers and Everlast were to fight in real life, Everlast would win. This angered Eminem to the point of rage, and an insulting track aimed at both Everlast and Limp Bizkit (mainly Durst and Lethal) appeared on D12's mainstream debut, Devil's Night, as the track "Girls." Recently, things seem to have settled, and Eminem has no longer been heard insulting Everlast or Limp Bizkit. It is currently unknown if the dispute is resolved. Unfortunately Eminem destroyed his career as an american artist.

Slipknot

The controversy between Slipknot and Limp Bizkit started when a close friend of Corey Taylor (Slipknot's lead vocalist) told him that he heard that someone from Limp Bizkit called Slipknot fans a bunch of "fat ugly kids." It eventually turned out that the Corey Taylor's friend saw this on a news post from Kerrang!. Fred Durst told a radio station that Kerrang! were liars and he is actually a fan of Slipknot. After a while the feud eventually seemed to have stopped. The end of the feud was confirmed on December 9, 2010 when Fred was asked on the Tom Green's House Tonight if he still had any beef with Corey Taylor, Fred replied "No, we're completely on the same page, it's a good friendship coming."

Christina Aguilera

At the end of singer Christina Aguilera's performance at the 2000 VMAs, Fred Durst entered onstage and performed a part of Limp Bizkit's song "Livin' It Up" with Aguilera, surprising the audience due to the differences between their music styles and also because rapper Eminem, with whom Durst had a conflict in the past, previously accused in his song "The Real Slim Shady", that Aguilera and Durst had a sexual relationship, which both denied. After eliciting charged reactions from his fans, Durst stated: "I already told you guys before, I did it all for the nookie, man." The feud died weeks later. Aguilera denied Durst's statement: "He got no nookie."

Britney Spears

Durst stated in 2010 that "It was just a piece of life that I lived, and I guess I'm going to be asked that question (about Spears) for the rest of my life". He reportedly had "wild" "unprotected" sex after she seduced him in a see through blouse. He also went on record hinting she was a natural blonde and had a better body than his ex-girlfriend Carmen Electra.

In media

Fred Durst is included as a hidden playable character in the WWE video games SmackDown! Just Bring It and WWE Raw in exchange for the use of "Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle)", the theme song of the Undertaker at the time.

Durst is a playable character in the Fight Club video game.

Durst was mentioned in rapper Eminem's song "The Real Slim Shady", claiming that singer Christina Aguilera had performed oral sex on Durst and television host Carson Daly by following lyrics: Shit, Christina Aguilera, better switch me chairs/so I can sit next to Carson Daly and Fred Durst/and hear 'em argue over who she gave head to first.

Works

Music

Limp Bizkit

• Three Dollar Bill, Yall$ (1997)
• Significant Other (1999)
• Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000)
• New Old Songs (2001)
• Results May Vary (2003)
• The Unquestionable Truth (Part 1) (2005)
• Greatest Hitz (2005)
• Rock Im Park 2001 (2008)
• Gold Cobra (2011)

Other appearances

• "Bleed" from the Soulfly album Soulfly (1998).
• "Go Away" & "Blame" from the Cold album Cold (1998).
• "Human Piñata" from the Videodrone album Videodrone (1998).
• "All In The Family" from the Korn album Follow The Leader (1998).
• "Get Naked" from the Methods of Mayhem album Methods of Mayhem (1999).
• "Outside (Live)" with Aaron Lewis from the compilation The Family Values Tour 1999 (2000).
• "Bring the Noise" from the compilation album Take a Bite Outta Rhyme: A Rock Tribute to Rap (2000).
• "Our House" from the Eminem unreleased album Off the Wall (2000)
• "Forever" from the Snot tribute album Strait Up (2000).
• "Them Girls" from the Run-DMC album Crown Royal (2001).
• "N 2 Getha Now" from the Method Man & Redman album soundtrack How High (2001).
• "Lay It On Back" from the Kurupt album Space Boogie: Smoke Oddessey (2001).
• "Another Life" from the Third Eye Blind album Out of the Vein (2003).
• "Famous" from the Rock album Veteran dayz (2004).
• "Rock Away Remix" from the Lazee album Setting Standards (2008).
• "The Incredible" from the DJ Honda album IV (2009).

Filmography

Films

• Zoolander (2001, cameo)
• Pauly Shore is Dead (2003, cameo)
• Be Cool (2005, cameo)
• Revelations (2005)
• Population 436 (2006)
• The Education of Charlie Banks (2007, director)
• The Longshots (2008, director)
• Play Dead

Music videos

• All Limp Bizkit music videos
• Cold - Give (1998), cameo
• Soulfly - Bleed (1998), sang verse in song and appeared in video
• Kid Rock - Bawitdaba (1998), cameo
• Korn - Got the Life (1998), cameo
• Methods of Mayhem - Get Naked (1999), sang chorus and appeared in video
• Lil' Bow Wow - Bow Wow (That's My Name) (2000), cameo
• Eminem - The Real Slim Shady (2000), cameo
• Strait Up - Angel's Son (2000)
• Aaron Lewis of Staind - Outside (live) (2000)
• 8-Ball - Stop Playin' Games (2001), cameo
• Puddle of Mudd - Control (2001), cameo
• All Stars Tribute - What's Going On (2001)
• Deadsy - The Key to Gramercy Park (2002)

Television

• Fastlane (2002), cameo
• House M.D. (2008), guest star

As director

• Limp Bizkit - Faith (1998)
• Limp Bizkit - Nookie (1999)
• Limp Bizkit - Break Stuff (1999)
• Limp Bizkit - Re-Arranged (1999)
• Limp Bizkit - N 2 Gether Now (1999)
• Staind - Just Go (1999)
• Staind - Home (1999)
• Korn - Falling Away from Me (1999)
• Cold - No One (2000)
• Limp Bizkit - My Generation (2000)
• Limp Bizkit - Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) (2000)
• Limp Bizkit - My Way (2001)
• Limp Bizkit - Boiler (2001), co-director
• Cold - Bleed (2001)
• Puddle of Mudd - Control (2001)
• Staind - It's Been Awhile (2001)
• 8-Ball - Stop Playin Games (2001)
• Puddle of Mudd - Blurry (2002)
• Deadsy - The Key to Gramercy Park (2002)
• Staind - Epiphany (2002)
• Limp Bizkit - Eat You Alive (2003)
• Limp Bizkit - Behind Blue Eyes (2003)
• The Education of Charlie Banks (2007)
• Dwight Yoakam - Close Up the Honky Tonks (2007)
• The Longshots (2008)
• Pawn Shop Chronicles (2011)

External links

• Official Limp Bizkit website
• Fred Durst at IMDb
• Fred Durst at AllMusic
• Fred Durst on X