Limp Bizkit frontman Fred Durst has made some interesting choices in the past few decades, including asking to help Elon Musk out with X (formally Twitter) and pleading with Donald Trump during his first presidency. The musician is now correcting fans about how his band’s biggest hit, “Nookie,” is actually a heart-breaking love song.
The Meaning of “Nookie”
During an interview, he was asked, “In 1999, you’re doing it all for the nookie. What are you doing it all for in 2025?”
“The funny thing about that though, nobody listened to the story in ‘Nookie’ — they just listened to the catchphrase,” Durst explained to Dazed. “It’s like when I say Rage Against the Machine, they listen to, ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’ — they don’t listen to the rest of it.”
“‘Nookie’ — the first time I had been intimate with someone it happened later and I was very much head over heels in love because of that, and I was just that guy,” he adds. “I was very much a vulnerable person in that world and I couldn’t believe it even happened. So I fell in love and then this person was sleeping with other people, and people would say, ‘Fred, you’re so upset, why are you staying?,’ and I’d say ‘because, we made love’ and I found a different way to say that: I did it all for the nookie. That sounded more fun. So what I did it for then was the love.”
Looking at lyrics like:
“It’s kinda sad, I’m the laughin’ stock of the neighborhood
And you would think that I’d be movin’ on (movin’)
But I’m a sucker like I said.
Fucked up in the head (not)
And maybe she just made a mistake
And I should give her a break
My heart will ache either way.”
Hell, what do you want him to say? Given how rampant toxic bro culture was in the late 90s this seems like a “man up” way of saying “getting cheated on hurts.” The choice to call it “nookie” can easily be taken as a way of trying to minimize what they had to disguise the pain.
All For Love
Thankfully the vocalist has found his own different kind of love story, welcoming his daughter into the world. “What I do it for now is for the love. I have a new daughter, she’s eight months old… Her name’s Cali and I’m just living for every moment with her right now. That’s what I’m doing it for now, still doing it for the love.”
Limp Bizkit will be headlining the “Loserville” UK/European tour in the early spring. Then they will be hitting the road with Metallica for select dates in May and June on the metal icons’ 2025 North American tour. Durst also has a role in the new A24 horror film “Y2K” in theaters now. You can check out the trailer and song below:
