Warrant Guitarist Steven Sweet Admits the 1990 'Cherry Pie' Music Video Was 'Misogynistic' in 'Hindsight'
The early 1990s music video was the talk of the town for pushing the limits of early MTV
Glam metal band Warrant has a different perspective on their iconic "Cherry Pie" music video, 34 years later.
Appearing in the new documentary Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of '80s Hair Metal, the band looked back at being part of the visual craze that was music videos in the early 1990s.
"Warrant was all about having fun without hurting anybody," drummer Steven Sweet, now 58, explained. "I know we didn't think of it as a misogynistic video, although it was in hindsight."
Singer Jani Lane's then-girlfriend, Bobbie Brown, starred in the video, with clips of her dancing around, being hosed down and sitting sprawled across a car interspliced with the band singing the catchy hit.
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Related: Bobbie Brown on Being the 'Cherry Pie' Girl: 'The Older I Got, the More I Embraced It'
In the documentary, former MTV executive Rick Krim recalled the video as being one that took the sex appeal "over the top."
"I don't even know if that got flagged at the time. Objectifying women kind of became the rule," he said. "You look back at it now and you're like, 'How did we let them get away with that?' "
PEOPLE caught up with Brown in early 2020. While chatting about her second memoir, Cherry on Top, she opened up about her mixed feelings over being framed a "video vixen."
Despite resenting the fact that she felt much of her identity was tied to "Cherry Pie," she explained that with time, she made peace with it.
"There was a time when I would go, 'Oh God, not that again.' I had done so many other things beyond just being in a music video and yet, I was just the 'Cherry Pie' girl. It was b-------, I thought. But the older I got, the more I embraced it."
"The reality is that this is how most people know me," she continued. "This is why most people are interested in me ... And it was never a negative experience in my life so there's no need to have negative feelings toward it. I don't need to make it a negative experience. I've embraced it. I'm totally okay with it today."
Lane and Brown were married in 1991 and had a daughter together before their split in 1993, which Sweet said was part of what led to the band's ultimate demise.
"Jani came drunk to a gig one night and he messed up on a song and he turned around and pinned it on me. He said, 'Have another drink, Steve.' And I'm like, 'I'm not the one drinking,' " he recalled of the singer, who died in 2011. "Jani got into a lot of demons and let that kind of thing take over his life."
"He fell apart basically when his marriage fell apart and he wanted to just be solo in many ways," he continued. "And so that forced the band into bankruptcy when he left the band. So the band split up, everybody lost everything because Jani lost everything."
Nöthin' But a Good Time: The Uncensored Story of '80s Hair Metal is now streaming on Paramount+.
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