{"id":810840,"date":"2026-10-22T23:10:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:10:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810840\/"},"modified":"2026-10-22T23:10:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T23:10:12","slug":"don-henley-reveals-his-sworn-musical-nemesis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/810840\/","title":{"rendered":"Don Henley reveals his sworn musical nemesis"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Don<\/p>\n

Credit: Far Out \/ TIDAL<\/p>\n

October 22nd, 2026 \u00b7 9:24pm BST <\/p>\n

No one becomes a legend in the music industry without making a few enemies along the way. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to say the right things in the press, but behind the scenes, things often get ugly. Don Henley<\/a> always had a clear idea of how he wanted to conduct himself in the business, but his falling-outs didn\u2019t end when the Eagles broke up. In fact, they were just getting started.<\/p>\n

If anything, the band\u2019s decision to cut ties as the 1980s began was almost a necessity. They had been worn out from years of touring and recording, and after trying to slog everything out during The Long Run, addiction issues led to them eventually coming to blows during a benefit show at Long Beach, California, on July 31st, 1980. <\/p>\n

It would be the final concert they would play<\/a> for 14 years. However, even if their future looked uncertain, though, Henley didn\u2019t need to worry about a damn thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Henley was the voice behind all of their greatest hits, and when he started working on tunes like \u2018Dirty Laundry\u2019, there was doubt that he was going to be a solo star. But a good record only comes from the people around it as well. While David Geffen had already fallen out with Henley when the Eagles were tied up in legal matters with Asylum Records, he managed to patch things up enough to work on records like Building the Perfect Beast<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Despite still selling some of the biggest records of any former Eagle, Henley remembered thinking that his records were getting little support, culminating in him getting sued by Geffen for $30,000,000 when he asked to leave the company in 1993. Although Geffen was ready for war, he did end up stooping a little too low as well.<\/p>\n

Henley\u2019s wife had been battling serious health struggles during the trial, and while she had no knowledge of what her husband\u2019s deal entailed, she was forced to testify in court on behalf of her life partner. Even though Geffen labelled Henley as a \u201cmalcontent\u201d on multiple occasions, the frontman said that his relationship with the industry mogul was never going to be the same after going through those court hearings.<\/p>\n

Further reading: From The Vault<\/p>\n

Before this legal affair made the vicious feud a public matter, they kept their dislike for one another behind closed doors, but Henley couldn\u2019t play Mr Nice Guy any longer. In 1993, he viciously told the LA Times, \u201cDavid Geffen is not in the record business anymore. He\u2019s in the David Geffen business.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henley may be a heavyweight musical performer, but winning a legal fight against Geffen, who Forbes estimates has a net worth of up to $9.7 billion as of 2026, was a stretch too far, even for him.<\/p>\n

\"Don<\/a>Credit: Far Out \/ Geffen Records \/ Los Angeles Times<\/p>\n

He ultimately ended up getting Eagles back together, which helped him fulfil his contract thanks to the chart-topping 1994 live album, Hell Freezes Over<\/a>, which was released on Geffen. Following the release of his 1995 solo greatest hits, Actual Miles: Henley\u2019s Greatest Hits, he was finally a free man.<\/p>\n

However, the grudge still burns bright. Speaking to the Inquirer in 2008, Henley reflected in detail on the feud, which he called \u201cugly\u201d, explaining, \u201cI simply didn\u2019t want to make records for David Geffen anymore. I have absolutely no respect for the man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Henley then explained that once the Eagles broke up, Geffen encouraged him to sign a contract after being given a charming pitch, conceding, \u201cAnd I fell for it, again, because I was feeling rather insecure and at loose ends at the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ultimately, he felt it was a toxic one-way relationship, adding, \u201cI just didn\u2019t feel like putting my heart and soul into any more records for a company that just didn\u2019t really care.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even as late as 2017, Henley thought that those wounds were too fresh to patch up, <\/a>saying<\/a>, \u201cI think the hate is much stronger than the love! I don\u2019t care what he says about me. Everybody knows who he is, and what he is. I don\u2019t need to say a thing about him, because everybody knows.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because for Henley, this was about more than business. He had become a songwriter to write the kind of tunes that would last long after he was gone. But, in his view, Geffen saw him as someone he could exploit every time he made a new record, and as a piece of meat rather than a genuine artist. And looking at what Henley was writing right before the hearings, it\u2019s no wonder that he felt stifled. <\/p>\n

The End of the Innocence most likely wasn\u2019t named that by accident, and even when Henley joined the Eagles again during their reunion<\/a>, he was definitely a changed man from the naive kid who started out with Geffen in 1971. He could always deliver the songs fans wanted to hear, but whenever it came time to make a new record or go out on a major tour, he would always have his guard up in case someone was trying to take advantage of him.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

ADD AS A PREFERRED SOURCE ON GOOGLE \"\"\/ <\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Far Out \/ TIDAL October 22nd, 2026 \u00b7 9:24pm BST No one becomes a legend in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":810841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[32677,198514,6491,93207,30948,96,11654,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-810840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-1990s","tag-198514","tag-celebrities","tag-david-geffen","tag-don-henley","tag-entertainment","tag-rock-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=810840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/810840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/810841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=810840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=810840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=810840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}