Our favorite musicians provide us with amazing music and thrilling live performances. But, there’s only so much that we truly know about them. As wild as some celebrities appear onstage, their personal lives may be even wilder. Here are some things that our favorite musicians did backstage that most people just don’t know about.
Two Spice Girls Had A Fling
The Spice Girls were known for doing things differently from other pop girl groups. They were free-spirited and wanted to display their individuality, which made them rather popular to the masses. But that free-spirited nature came to a head in 2019. Mel B. (Scary Spice) stated that she and Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice) had a one-off sexual encounter. Halliwell, however, claimed that the story was untrue. This caused some tension within the group, at least least until their tour got underway.
Phil Spector Pulled A Gun On The Ramones
Nobody knows the exact story of this one, there have been a few different accounts. The details aren’t incredibly important. What matters is that Phil Spector pointed a gun at the Ramones. And clearly they didn’t like it that much. It was an intimidation tactic that did its job and scared the band.
Jessica Simpson Was Too Curvy For Christians
When Jessica Simpson first started, she wanted to sing more Christian music. But her body made people nervous. More specifically, it made pastors nervous. As it turns out, she had developed quite the curves by the time she was 13. She was told she was “too sexy”, and she didn’t even know what that was. So, after a year of trying to get more Christian gigs, she eventually just decided to go into pop music.
Dancing For Beyonce Is Harder Than Bootcamp
Dancing for Beyonce is like being the marines. The difference being it can be easier to quit. Dance captain Ashley McEverett has spoken of how people have mental breakdowns and pass out from putting on their massive productions. Rehearsals can go on for as long as three months. Although, Beyonce’s at least not heartless. During a performance of “Single Ladies”, McEverett’s boyfriend disrupted the show. As it turns out he was proposing.
The Beastie Boys And Madonna On The “Virgin” Tour
Did you know that the Beastie Boys used to open up for Madonna. It was on her “Virgin” tour. As it turned out, she was looking to add some New York edge to her show, so she called Russell Simmons of Def Jam to book the Fat Boys for her. Unfortunately, they weren’t a Def Jam act so they gave her the Beastie Boys instead. Audiences despised the Beastie Boys, and they took that energy and threw it right back. In contrast, Madonna loved them and insisted they stayed on the tour. It worked out, as by the time the Beastie Boys were booed off stage they were fully ready to embrace Madonna.
Jennifer Lopez Wants Everything To Be White
Jennifer Lopez is singer, dancer, and actress. Every celebrity seems to display some diva-like behavior, but something was recently discovered in her rider that might take things a little bit too far. Riders are a list of requests and requirements an artist makes to a venue before they arrive. And this was some of the riders for J-Lo in 2001. She wanted a 45-foot trailer with triple side outs and two entry doors. And her dressing room needed the room, flowers, tables or tablecloths, drapes, candles, and couches. Everything needed to be white. Also, she really didn’t want any tomato, apple, or grape juice. For obvious reasons.
Sheila E. And Prince Were Secretly Engaged
Sheila E. was a solo artist and also the drummer for Prince’s band. Fans speculated on the nature of their relationship, but people were unsure for years. But in her autobiography, Sheila E. revealed that she and Prince had actually been engaged. During a show, halfway through “Purple Rain”, Prince turned to his drummer and mouthed “Marry me?” And she said yes. Their engagement was secret, and they seemed to be happy for a while. But the relationship ended up falling apart and they never were married.
Ozzy Osbourne Bit The Head Of An Animal
January 20th 1982, Ozzy Osbourne did one of the most insane things in his entire career. Arguably, it was an accident, but some details of the situation aren’t super clear. He was already known for doing crazy things onstage, but this took the cake. During a performance in Des Moines, Iowa, a fan threw a bat at him. He just picked it up and chomped the head read off. According to him, he thought it was a rubber bat, but it was 100% real. This wasn’t the first time he had bit the head off of a small animal onstage either. Just one of the most notable. After the show, he got shots for tetanus and rabies.
Nirvana Were Asked To Leave Their Own Party
Nevermind wasn’t just Nirvana’s major-label debut, bit it was also considered one of the greatest rock albums of all time. in 1991, they decided to host a record release part at Re-bar in Seattle. Things started out normal, even if the grunge band members seemed out of place with the industry suits in their suits. But after two spins of Nevermind, the band said they wanted to listen to something else. They attempted to take over DJ duties, ripped posters off the wall, one thing led to another and they ended up in a massive food fight. Nervous about losing his liquor license, Re-bar owner Steve Wells hurriedly removed the band members from the scene.
Cher Got Banned From The Movie Industry For 13 Years
Cher is now known to be not just a great singer, but a successful actress as well. She’s even won an Oscar for crying out loud. But while her first big movie came out in 1982, there was a time when it might not have happened at all. Cher and her husband, Sonny Bono, made a movie called Chastity in 1969. And it was just awful. It flopped so hard that Cher wouldn’t appear in another film for 13 years.
Katy Perry Was Too Hot For Sesame Street
Katy Perry’s a bit well-known for wearing some pretty outlandish outfits. But that didn’t matter too much to Sesame Street. The show’s been known to have a variety of guest stars, from all sorts of backgrounds. In 2010 she filmed a music video based off of her song “Hot ‘n Cold” with Elmo. It was intended to air on the show, but was first posted on YouTube. And commenters found the video to be “too risqué” because of the amount of Perry’s cleavage that visible. As a result, the clip never aired on television.
Vince Neil And Ozzy Osbourne Stole A Car
After being kicked off of their tour with Kiss, the Motley Crüe ended up touring with Ozzy Osbourne instead. Ozzy was already known for his crazy antics and he seemed to only elevate the Crüe’s bad behavior. Supposedly, during a stop in Memphis, Tennessee, Vince Neil and Ozzy stumbled across a car with its keys in the ignition. So, of course they stole it. After taking it for a joyride they slashed up the interior and smashed all the windows.
Agnetha Fältskog’s Stalker Is Famous For Stalking Her
If the name sounds familiar to you, then you should know that Agenetha Fältskog was the lead singer of ABBA. Unlike most celebrities though, she couldn’t really handle the spotlight, making the eventual breakup of ABBA more of a relief to her. However, she later found herself followed by a stalker named Ger van der Graaf. He was a forklift driver that she briefly dated, but after breaking up with her he wouldn’t leave her alone. He was eventually deported from Sweden and barred from reentering, but he never really gave up. In Sweden they call him the Agenetha-Man.
Lee Hazlewood Gave Nancy Sinatra Some Bizarre Advice
Nancy’s father was the famous Frank Sinatra, but he wasn’t the one that moulded her into the celebrity she’d become. And thank god for that, considering she ended up becoming an iconic sex symbol of the 60’s. No, the one that advised her was her eventual husband, Lee Hazelwood. He was never impressed by her vocal performances and would constantly give her notes. Some of those notes included things like “sing like a 14-year-old girl in love with a 40-year-old man”. And that’s just one example. Others are even more risqué than that.
Van Morrison Was On The Run From The Mob
In 1967, Van Morrison had just split off from the band Them and released a solo album with Bang Records. The problem? Nobody bought it. Bert Berns, the owner of Bang, died that same year and the New York mob somehow ended up getting Morrison’s contract. Warner Bros. eventually did buy Morrison out of his contract, but it was a scary process for all non-mobsters involved.
Dolly Parton Got Support From An Unexpected Place
Did you know that Dolly Parton’s bust is ensured for $600,000? It makes sense, as she’s used her sizable bust to get ahead in the music industry. She’s admitted to using them to get what she wants and is completely comfortable with her attention-getting figure. She’s even once said, “I don’t know if I’m supporting them [her bust], or they’re supporting me.”
Duran Duran Was Princess Diana’s Favorite Band (And They Didn’t Want To Be)
There are a lot of British people that are obsessed with the Royal Family and follow everything they do. There are also a not insignificant number of people in Great Britain that couldn’t care less. And Duran Duran was a part of the latter group. Unfortunately for them, Princess Diana was pretty open about liking them. Considering they were a bit more edgy of a band, it just wasn’t the kind of endorsement they wanted.
Courtney Love Threatened A Journalist With An Oscar
In 1992, Lynn Hirschberg, a journalist for Vanity Fair, wrote an article about Courtney Love. She quoted her saying she did heroin for a couple of moths after Nirvana performed on Saturday Night Live. And that would’ve overlapped with her pregnancy with her daughter. And after the child was born, she was taken into child protective services. Love was understandably upset and claimed the story was false. She was so angry at Hirschberg in fact she even wrote a song about them, titled “Bring Me The Head Of Lynn Hirschberg”. They didn’t cross paths until 1995 at an Oscars afterparty. And when she saw her foe, she grabbed the nearest blunt object, the award for best screenplays that Pulp Fiction had won, and threatened to beat Hirschberg with it.
Janis Joplin Performed At Woodstock, But Didn’t Appear In The Movie
Janis Joplin was known to have been a massive partier since she was young. She especially loved to drink, with her favorite one being a whiskey liqueur called Souther Comfort. In 1959, Joplin played at Woodstock, but her music wasn’t used in either of the Woodstock albums or the film. The reason behind this is how long she was left waiting before she could actually perform. Ten hours in fact. She refused to allowed any documentarians to use her footage in the movie.
Tupac Stopped Flavor Flav From Committing Murder
The rap group Public Enemy was like royalty, deserving of respect in their heyday. Flavor Flav used to be the wild man of the group, and years later he revealed some information about his relationship with Tupac. As it turns out Tupac actually once calmed down the young man from accidentally killing a man. The way Flav tells it, he was about to smack a man in the head with a fire extinguisher. He sincerely believes he would’ve killed that person had Tupac not stopped him.
David Lee Roth’s Color-Coded Delivery System
David Lee Roth of Van Halen was known as one of the biggest post-show partiers ever. After a concert, he would go backstage to the area packed with young woman and would work it as follows. He had the barrier in front of the stage painted different colors, red, blue and green. They denoted different areas of the audience. And between songs, after finding hot girls, he’d go to his assistant say which girls he liked, based on the color of the section and their seat. For example, “Green, right, fourteen rows back, three seats in”. And the assistant would deliver backstage passes as instructed.
David Bowie Doesn’t Even Remember Recording Station To Station
David Bowie had developed a terrible cocaine addiction in the mid-70’s. While there’s a lot of interesting trivia relating to the production of his album, Station To Station, Bowie, himself, didn’t remember any of it. His drug habit and odd diet caused a condition that a biographer referred to as “a state of psychic terror”.
Someone Stole Gram Parson’s Body
Country-rock superstar Gram Parsons died of an overdose in Joshua Tree, California. And after it had happened, there was a fair amount of disagreement over what he would have wanted people to do with his body. Phil Kaufamn, Parson’s road manager, knew that Parsons wanted to be cremated and his ashes scattered at Joshua Tree National Park. However, his stepfather wanted to have him buried in Louisiana and Parsons’ body was shipped there. Kaufman was intent to honor his friend’s last wish, so he and an accomplice stole the body. They drove all the way back from New Orleans to California in a hearse. They attempted to cremate the body in the coffin, but only had partial success. They were arrested and Parsons’ remains were shipped back to New Orleans to be buried. Fortunately for Kaufman and his friend, there wasn’t a law against stealing a dead body. So, they were only fined $750 for stealing Parsons’ coffin.
The Outlawz Smoked Tupac’s Ashes
Tupac Shakur’s lyrics often had mentions of death within them. And when he was unfortunately murdered in 1996 that gave people some hints about how his body might be treated after he died. In one of his songs, “Black Jesuz”, his group, The Outlawz, sang lyrics that implied Tupac wished to have his ashes smoked after he died. As it turns out, that’s exactly what they did. At a wake-like event at the beach, they had some of Tupac’s favorite things, like chicken wings and orange soda. They then rolled some marijuana cigarettes, put in some of Tupac’s ashes, and smoked them. And as it turned out, that was exactly what Tupac had wanted.
The Beastie Boys Started A Riot In Liverpool
The Beastie Boys’ early music was full of frat-boy humor and energy. Their final performance on one tour happened to be in Liverpool, England. And if you remember the mentions of them from before on this list, you’d know they don’t get along well with their live audience. Things were confrontational from the start. They had only been performing for 12 minutes when things turned ugly. Ad Rock lobbed some cans of beer into the audience, and next thing everyone knew a riot had started. The crowd even needed to be dispersed with tear gas. To add insult to injury, a woman had been hit by one of Ad Rock’s bear cans in the face. So, he was arrested brought into court. The incident caused their record label, Def Jam, to drop the band.
