Bob Dylan Apologizes For Book-Signing Controversy

Bob Dylan
Photo: Kevin Mazur/WireImage

Bob Dylan says he didn’t think twice about using an autopen to sign his new books — and it’s not all right. After a controversy over allegedly hand-signed $599 copies of his new book by Dylan, the singer-songwriter legend has since apologized. Modern Song Philosophy, which led publisher Simon & Schuster to offer customers refunds. Dylan said using an autopen, which traces one’s signature, “was an error in judgment” in a November 25 Facebook post. He further explained that he “had a bad case of vertigo” beginning in 2019, and by the time he needed to sign the books during the pandemic, he couldn’t do so with other personnel in the same room. “With contractual deadlines looming, the idea of using an auto-pen was suggested to me, along with the assurance that this kind of thing is done ‘all the time’ in the art and literary worlds,” he wrote. Dylan said he is working with Simon & Schuster to “rectify it immediately” while assuring fans his previous signatures before this book have been authentic. Oddly, he’s not the first classic-rocker this month to defend making superfans spend hundreds.