20 Facts About Jann Wenner

Jann Simon Wenner is an American businessman who co-founded the popular culture magazine Rolling Stone with Ralph J Gleason and is the former owner of Men's Journal magazine.

Jann Wenner participated in the Free Speech Movement while attending the University of California, Berkeley.

Later in his career, Wenner co-founded the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and founded other publications.

Jann Wenner was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, the son of Sim and Edward Jann Wenner.

Jann Wenner's parents divorced in 1958, and he and his sisters, Kate and Merlyn, were sent to boarding schools.

Jann Wenner completed his secondary education at the Chadwick School in 1963, and went on to attend the University of California, Berkeley.

In 1967, Jann Wenner founded Rolling Stone magazine in San Francisco.

Jann Wenner discovered photographer Annie Leibovitz when she was a 21-year-old San Francisco Art Institute student.

Jann Wenner hired former FHM editor Ed Needham, who was then replaced by Will Dana, to turn his flagship magazine around, and by 2006, Rolling Stones circulation was at an all-time high of 1.5 million copies sold every two weeks.

Jann Wenner has been involved in the conducting and writing of many of the magazine's Rolling Stone Interviews.

Jann Wenner founded the magazine Outside in 1977; where William Randolph Hearst III and Jack Ford both worked before Jann Wenner sold it a year later.

Jann Wenner briefly managed the magazine Look and, in 1993, started the magazine Family Life.

From 2004 to 2006, Jann Wenner contributed approximately US$63,000 to Democratic candidates and liberal organizations.

In October 2016, Jann Wenner started publishing Glixel, a video games-based website.

Reportedly, as Thompson was waiting for a $75,000 advance check to arrive, he learned that Jann Wenner had canceled the assignment without telling him.

Jann Wenner then asked Thompson to travel to Vietnam to report on what turned out to be the final moments of the Vietnam War.

In 1996, Jann Wenner fired rock critic Jim DeRogatis after DeRogatis delivered a negative review for an album by the then-popular band Hootie and the Blowfish.

In June 2017, Jann Wenner cut ties with Joe Hagan, the biographer he commissioned to write his biography, Sticky Fingers, calling the book Hagan produced "deeply flawed and tawdry, rather than substantial".

Jann Wenner issued an apology statement through his publisher, Little, Brown and Company, on September 18,2023.

Jann Wenner and Nye have three children born via surrogate mothers.