Last week, Extreme guitarist Nuno Bettencourt gave an interview in which he talked about how difficult being Rihanna’s guitarist can be. Bettencourt has been one of Rihanna’s main guitarists since 2009, and he performed with her earlier this year during the Super Bowl.

“When somebody like Rihanna reaches out to you to perform everybody thinks ‘oh, that’s cute. It’s a pop artist, whatever,'” he told Planet Rock. “Let me tell you something, what I had to do night after night … put on a reggae hat [for one song] with a reggae feel, and go into R&B, then go into some punk rock and pop rock that she did, and then club tracks. All sorts of [things], all those different feels.”

“I’m sorry, most of the guitar players who I admire could not in their lifetime play that gig. I mean that in the most complimentary way possible,” he continued. “Slash is one of the greatest rock guitar players of all time but I guarantee – and he’d be the first to tell you – that if he jumps up and he’s got play a clean intro to ‘Rude Boy’ from Rihanna, it ain’t happening.”

That quote about Slash not being able to perform with Rihanna was aggregated across the guitar-centric news sites, and one of those aggregations caught the attention of Guns N’ Roses guitarist Richard Fortus, who has been playing with the band since 2002, and has played alongside Slash since he rejoined GN’R in 2016. Fortus took to Instagram to voice his displeasure with Bettencourt’s quote:

I have to respectfully disagree. @nunobettencourtofficial is one of the greats, for sure. However, there is very little @slash couldn’t do on guitar (if he wanted to). I toured with Rihanna prior to Nuno and I’ve spent a lot of time playing with Slash. This gig wouldn’t be a struggle for him.

Fortus played with Rihanna live shortly before Bettencourt did, around 2008. Bettencourt responded to Fortus’ Instagram with a lengthy message:

Welp… I new this was eventually coming.

You can’t be blessed and be on multiple guitar magazine covers at a shocking 56 years old, get this much attention for your playing and new album as a rock guitarist without another guitarist stirring up some shit.

Im responding to this not cause I give a shit about what this guitarist thinks about me but, instead, because I’d hate to think my few words offended a hero of mine, @slash and possibly fuck up my relationship with him.

@4tus I’ve “respectively” never heard you play one note in my 56 years of being alive and only know your name from the Rihanna camp and as a replacement player in Guns.

I’m sure you’re a decent player, but did you really need to repost a headline that made me look like I am badmouthing a fellow player, Slash.

As if I’d ever think Slash isn’t capable of playing any Rihanna song in his sleep.

Let’s get something fucking straight.
To me, Slash is one of the greatest rock guitarists of my generation and of all time. PERIOD.

And @4tus if you knew me at all and where my heart is you’d know that what I meant in this statement was not about slash or his capability, It was about Rock guitarists like myself or Slash switching genres and the awkwardness of playing these feels.

No SHIT Slash can play these songs, thank you so much for pointing that out as if we didn’t already know that.

But for me as a predominant ROCK guitarist, Im obviously not as talented as you and found it a challenge to nail all the different pockets and guitar tones of genres like Reggae, R&B, Electronic Dance, Trap and pop.

As far as you shining a light on my ridiculous statement that Slash would “struggle”, yes a poor word choice on my part, I personally would hope that Slash who is a peer and influence would be more mature enough to understand what I truly meant as a guitarist by that comment.

In mentioning Slash as an iconic Rock example, I meant in general a rock guitarist would find it, NOT A STRUGGLE, but feel like a fish out of water as a player.
THATS ALL I MEANT.

I’ve had NOTHING but respect and admiration for @gunsnroses and @slash.

Apologies if I’ve unintentionally offended anyone

Tragically for both of them, it seems like Rihanna has no interest in performing outside of the Super Bowl, so she won’t need any more guitarists for a while — but maybe when she does, she’ll see if Slash can hang.

Another wrinkle to all this is that Slash has played with Rihanna — he’s featured on her Rated R track “Rockstar 101.” Though when it came to appearing in the song’s accompanying music video, the guitarist opted out. At the time, in an interview with MTV News, he explained why:

I was supposed to actually be in that video. I played on the song, and they called me up to ask me to play in the video, but my record was just coming out, and I was sort of worn thin. She was really sweet. She sent me this pleading text to come do the video, but I couldn’t make it work. I told her that me not being in the video wasn’t going to make or break it.

The video is way better with her being me than with me being me. All things considered, it brings an element of sexuality to it that I probably wouldn’t have been capable of. I think it’s hot, and I sent her a text this morning telling her it was definitely hotter with her doing it than with me doing it. Everything works out the way it’s supposed to.