Fred Durst

William Frederick Durst (born Frederick Allen Mayne III; August 20, 1970) is an American rapper, singer, songwriter, film director, and actor. He is the frontman and lyricist of the nu metal band Limp Bizkit, formed in 1994, with whom he has released six studio albums.

Durst was born Frederick Allen Mayne III in Jacksonville, Florida, but soon moved to Orlando, and then to a farm in Cherryville, North Carolina, at one year old. His mother, Anita, renamed him William Frederick Durst after remarrying Bill Durst, a local police officer. Shortly after, Durst's mother and stepfather had a child, his half-brother, Cory Durst. In the fifth grade, Fred Durst moved to Gastonia, North Carolina, where he graduated from Hunter Huss High School. As a child, Durst was bullied, a theme that he incorporated into his music. At the age of 12, Durst took an interest in breakdancing, hip-hop, punk rock, and heavy metal. He began to rap, skate, beatbox, and DJ. After serving in the Navy for two years, Durst moved back to Jacksonville with his father, where he worked as a landscaper and a tattoo artist while developing an idea for a band that combined elements of rock and hip-hop.

In 1994, Durst, Malachi Sage bassist Sam Rivers, and Rivers's high school friend John Otto jammed together and wrote three songs. Guitarist Wes Borland later joined. Durst named the band "Limp Bizkit" because he would repel listeners. Limp Bizkit developed a cult following in the underground music scene when its covers of George Michael's "Faith" and Paula Abdul's "Straight Up" began to attract curious concertgoers.

Later, when Korn performed in town as the opening act for Sick of It All, Durst invited Korn to his house. He was able to persuade bassist Reginald Arvizu to listen to demos of the songs "Pollution," "Counterfeit," and "Stalemate." Korn added a then-unsigned Limp Bizkit to two tours, which gave the latter a new audience. DJ Lethal, formerly of the hip-hop group House of Pain, joined the band as a turntablist. During this time, Durst's disagreements with Borland led the guitarist to briefly leave the band, but Borland rejoined soon after.

In 1997, Limp Bizkit signed with Flip Records, a subsidiary of Interscope Records, and released its debut album, Three Dollar Bill, Y'all to moderate response. On October 23, 1997, Durst met the band Staind, but friction quickly emerged between the two over the cover art of Staind's album. Durst unsuccessfully attempted to remove Staind from a concert bill shortly before the latter's performance, but after hearing the band play, he was so impressed that he signed the band to Flip/Elektra, recorded a demo with the band, and co-produced its next album, Dysfunction.

After Limp Bizkit finished a tour with the band Deftones, Durst and DJ Lethal were asked by Max Cavalera, formerly of the band Sepultura, to appear on "Bleed," a song from the self-titled debut of his new band Soulfly. Cavalera stated that producer Ross Robinson recommended that he work with Durst. Durst also made an appearance on Korn's album Follow the Leader. Jonathan Davis had intended to write a battle rap with B-Real of Cypress Hill, but the latter's label would not let him do it, and Durst was tapped instead. Davis and Durst wrote the lyrics for "All in the Family," which featured the two vocalists trading insults. Davis and Durst would often offer suggestions for each other's lyrics; a lyric written by Durst as "tootin' on your bagpipe" was changed to "fagpipes" by Davis, who stated, "I helped him bag on me better".

Durst began to take an interest in filmmaking, directing the music video for Limp Bizkit's single "Faith" in promotion for its appearance in the film Very Bad Things; he was unsatisfied with it and made a second video that paid tribute to tourmates Primus, Deftones, and Mötley Crüe, bands that appeared in the video.

Limp Bizkit achieved mainstream success with the albums Significant Other (1999) and Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water (2000). In June 1999, Durst was appointed Senior Vice President of A&R at Interscope. Durst utilized his connections through the label and scouted numerous bands, landing record deals for Cold, Staind, Puddle of Mudd, and She Wants Revenge. Durst would also aid in attracting other bands such as 30 Seconds to Mars and Taproot, though Durst would pass on 30 Seconds to Mars, and he later engaged in a minor feud with Taproot after it rejected his original offer to sign the group to Interscope in 1999.

In the summer of 1999, Limp Bizkit played at the highly anticipated Woodstock '99 festival in front of approximately 200,000 people. The concert was tarnished by violent behavior from the crowd, much of which occurred during and after Limp Bizkit's performance, including fans tearing plywood from the walls during the song "Break Stuff." Several sexual assaults were reported in the aftermath of the concert. Durst stated during the concert, "People are getting hurt. Don't let anybody get hurt. But I don't think you should mellow out. That's what Alanis Morissette had you motherfuckers do. If someone falls, pick 'em up. We already let the negative energy out. Now we wanna let out the positive energy." Durst later stated in an interview, "I didn't see anybody getting hurt. You don't see that. When you're looking out on a sea of people and the stage is twenty feet in the air and you're performing, and you're feeling your music, how do they expect us to see something bad going on?" Les Claypool told the San Francisco Examiner, "Woodstock was just Durst being Durst. His attitude is 'no press is bad press,' so he brings it on himself. He wallows in it. Still, he's a great guy." "It's easy to point the finger and blame [us], but they hired us for what we do —— and all we did is what we do. I would turn the finger and point it back to the people that hired us," Durst said, in reference to Woodstock co-founder Michael Lang.

In June 2000, Limp Bizkit's tour was sponsored by the controversial file sharing service Napster. Durst was an outspoken advocate of file sharing. During the 2000 MTV Video Music Awards, Durst performed Limp Bizkit's song "Livin' It Up" as a duet with Christina Aguilera. In response to the performance, Filter frontman Richard Patrick claimed that "Fred getting onstage with Christina Aguilera embarrassed us all." In response to the negative reactions to the performance, Durst remarked, "People always just wanna talk about Britney or Christina. What's the problem? Because they make a type of music we aren't allowed to like? Or you think they are the nemesis of what our music is about? Why segregate? Why be so musically fuckin' racist? What do you mean, I can't hang out with these types of people? Clearly I didn't give a fuck, which fed a lot of it, too. I mean, someone that's not going to give in and [apologize...it's] gonna make people carry on talking."

During a 2001 tour of Australia at the Big Day Out festival in Sydney, fans rushed the stage in the mosh pit, and teenager Jessica Michalik died of asphyxiation. In Auckland, New Zealand, on the same tour, Durst threw water over the head of a security personnel tasked with defusing a similar situation. During the Big Day Out crush, Durst has been accused of taunting security guards intervening in the situation. In court, Durst, represented by his long-time attorney, Ed McPherson, testified he had warned the concert's organizers Aaron Jackson, Will Pearce and Amar Tailor and promoter Vivian Lees of the potential dangers of such minimal security. After viewing video and hearing witness testimony, the coroner said it was evident that the density of the crowd was dangerous at the time Limp Bizkit took the stage and Durst should have acted more responsibly when the problem became apparent. Durst stated that he was "emotionally scarred" because of the teenager's death.

In 2002, Durst was tapped to write songs for Britney Spears and later said that he was in a relationship with her. Spears denied Durst's claims. In a 2009 interview, he explained that "I just guess, at the time, it was taboo for a guy like me to be associated with a gal like her." In February 2005, a sex tape featuring Durst was released on the Internet. Durst filed a $70 million lawsuit against ten websites that posted the video.

While Limp Bizkit was on hiatus, Durst began working in independent films. In 2006, Durst costarred in the film Population 436. His directorial debut, The Education of Charlie Banks, was released the following year. The film, which starred Jesse Eisenberg, Chris Marquette, and Jason Ritter, received mixed reviews; Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 48% based on reviews from 31 critics. The website's consensus stated, "Unevenness and earnestness mire this otherwise sweet, surprising [coming-of-age] drama." A second directorial effort, The Longshots, starring Ice Cube and Keke Palmer, was released in 2008. Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a score of 41% based on 71 reviews, with the site's consensus indicating that the film was "a largely formulaic affair, rarely deviating from the inspirational sports movie playbook." The same year, Durst appeared as a bartender in two episodes of the television medical drama House, M.D.

In 2009, the original lineup of Limp Bizkit reunited and began touring. Durst announced that the band had begun to record a new album, Gold Cobra. The album was released on June 28, 2011, receiving mixed reviews. It peaked at number 16 on the Billboard 200.

In 2012, Durst appeared on the Insane Clown Posse cover album Smothered, Covered & Chunked on a cover of AMG's "Bitch Betta Have My Money". In February 2012, Lil Wayne announced in a radio interview that Limp Bizkit had signed to his label, Cash Money Records, which Durst confirmed on his Twitter page. A few months later, Durst was featured alongside Lil Wayne and Birdman on the Kevin Rudolf song "Champions," which peaked in the top 10 on iTunes.

Originally, Durst was to direct and produce the film Pawn Shop Chronicles, starring Paul Walker; but Wayne Kramer was later chosen to direct the film. In 2014, Durst shot three commercials for the website eHarmony, In February 2018, Durst began filming The Fanatic, starring John Travolta.

While serving in the Navy, Durst was stationed in Oakland, California, where he married his first wife, Rachel Tergesen, in 1990. They had a daughter. Durst and Tergesen divorced in 1993 following a domestic disturbance in which the couple engaged in a heated argument. Durst was later arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, receiving a fine of $5,000.

Durst has a son with his ex-girlfriend, actress Jennifer Thayer.

In 2015, Durst stated his interest in obtaining a Russian passport and spending half of the year in Crimea. On October 8, 2015, the Russian newspaper Izvestia reported that Durst responded positively to Sergey Aksyonov's call to settle in Crimea. He wrote a letter stating that Vladimir Putin is "a great guy with clear moral principles and a nice person." Additionally, at a concert during the 'Money Sucks Tour' in Voronezh, Russia, he picked up a flag thrown on stage with an anti-Ukrainian slogan on it. Because of these controversies, he was banned by the Security Service of Ukraine from entering Ukraine for five years starting in November 2015 "in the interests of guaranteeing the security" of the country. In an official statement, Durst denied reports of asking to acquire Russian citizenship.

In November 2025, a Limp Bizkit concert in Tallinn set for May 2026 was canceled due to Durst's Russia comments. Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Margus Tsahkna stated that those supportive of Russia, especially following the 2022 invasion of Ukraine, had "no place on Estonian stages." The show's organizer pointed out the band performs in pro-Ukrainian countries and that Durst never spoke in favor of the invasion, while his previous comments were presumably due to "living in a distorted information bubble" at the time.