Introduction

At 92, Willie Nelson Looked Back at the Artists He Clashed With — But “Hated” Is Not the Whole Story 🎸

Willie Nelson has spent more than seven decades in the music business.

That’s long enough to make thousands of friends.

And more than enough time to make a few people angry.

So when a sensational claim began circulating that Willie had finally named “the seven artists he hated the most,” it sounded believable.

Willie has never been afraid to speak his mind.

But there’s one problem.

There is no reliable evidence that Willie Nelson ever produced such a list.

And the real stories behind his disagreements are actually much more interesting.

Take Waylon Jennings.

If there was ever a relationship that could look like a feud from the outside, it was Willie and Waylon.

They argued.

They competed.

They disagreed about music.

They disagreed about business.

Sometimes they seemed capable of disagreeing simply because the other man had already chosen a side.

Willie later compared their relationship to an old married couple.

“We fought about everything,” he recalled.

But then Willie immediately explained the part sensational headlines tend to leave out:

They were great friends.

Waylon occasionally carried genuine resentment.

He believed Willie had sometimes received preferential treatment and complained about financial matters connected with their careers.

Their relationship could become extremely tense.

Yet the bond survived.

Together they recorded classics including “Mammas Don’t Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys.”

Then Willie, Waylon, Johnny Cash and Kris Kristofferson formed The Highwaymen.

Four enormous personalities.

Four independent artists.

Four men accustomed to doing things their own way.

Arguments were inevitable.

But hatred?

That doesn’t accurately describe what Willie has said about those men.

After Kristofferson died in 2024, Willie called him a great songwriter and a great friend.

Looking back at the Highwaymen, Willie reflected painfully on the fact that Waylon, Johnny and Kris were all gone.

He was the only one left.

Then there was Ray Price.

Willie played bass in Price’s Cherokee Cowboys before becoming a superstar himself.

Ray also recorded Willie compositions.

But their friendship once exploded over something completely unexpected.

A rooster.

According to Willie’s own account, Ray had a fighting rooster that caused trouble among the chickens on Willie’s property.

Willie repeatedly asked Ray to retrieve it.

The rooster remained.

Eventually, after it killed several hens, Willie shot it.

And ate it.

Ray was furious.

He reportedly told Willie he would never sing another one of his songs.

For a time, the friendship was seriously damaged.

But the feud didn’t last.

Ray eventually forgave him.

Years later, the two men were still close and continued making music together, including their collaborative album San Antonio Rose. Shortly before Ray’s death in 2013, he described Willie as being like a brother.

That story tells us something important about Willie Nelson.

He could fight with someone without permanently hating them.

He could argue fiercely and then laugh about it years later.

He could separate disagreement from friendship.

And that may explain why constructing a neat list of “seven artists Willie hated” doesn’t fit particularly well with the man himself.

Willie’s career crossed musical boundaries constantly.

He recorded country.

Blues.

Jazz standards.

Gospel.

Pop.

Reggae.

He worked with everyone from Waylon Jennings and Merle Haggard to Ray Charles and Julio Iglesias.

Even in his nineties, that curiosity remained.

In a 2025 interview conducted when Willie was 92, he talked far more about gratitude than grudges.

He described himself as lucky.

He talked about family.

Music.

Recording.

And appreciating the life he had been given.

That doesn’t mean Willie never became angry.

Of course he did.

There were business disputes.

Arguments with friends.

Professional disagreements.

Broken relationships.

And moments when tempers exploded.

But that’s different from declaring seven people his most hated enemies.

Perhaps the most revealing example remains Waylon.

These were two stubborn men who could drive each other crazy.

They competed.

They fought.

They occasionally hurt each other.

Yet when the noise disappeared, friendship remained.

And after Waylon died in 2002, Willie didn’t spend his later years talking about an enemy.

He remembered a friend.

That may be the real Willie Nelson story.

Not seven people he hated.

But a lifetime filled with complicated people he sometimes fought with, sometimes forgave and often continued loving anyway.

Willie Nelson certainly had his battles.

He just didn’t need to turn every battle into a lifelong war. ❤️🎸