1 January

Pick a Day

Music History Events: Musicians Behaving Badly

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September 2, 2008 At the GQ "Men of the Year" Awards, Lily Allen manages to drink herself into oblivion, insults her co-host Sir Elton John and ends the night by leaking news of her brother's recent engagement in London.

January 17, 2008 After stopping off at a local shop in London on her way home from visiting her husband, who remains in prison, Amy Winehouse blows off some steam and attacks a photographer, which leads to the singer being escorted away by the police.

February 1, 2007 Wayne Fontana, famous for fronting Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, pours gasoline on the car of a bailiff sent to collect a debt, and sets the vehicle on fire. At his hearing in November, Fontana shows up dressed as Lady Justice, complete with sword and scales. The judge is not amused, sentencing him to 11 months in prison, and stating: "He has come dressed as a fool and he wants to act like a fool - I hope they give him a prison uniform at Nottingham Prison to keep him warm."

November 24, 2003 Glen Campbell is arrested for drunk driving and hit-and-run charges in Phoenix, Arizona, after crashing his BMW into another car at another intersection and continuing on. The 67-year-old Campbell, who is sentenced to ten days in jail, allegedly knees an officer's groin during the arrest.

November 7, 2002 Guns N' Roses is scheduled to start their first North American tour since 1993, but their notoriously unreliable frontman Axl Rose doesn't show for the Vancouver concert. The tour sputters and is canceled a month later.

July 30, 2001 Performing at OzzFest in Clarkston, Michigan, a thong-clad Marilyn Manson wraps his legs around the head of a 26-year-old security guard and grinds into him. The guard sues, claiming his head was "completely engulfed" in Manson's groin.More

February 16, 2001 Country singer Andy Griggs is arrested just before 3 a.m. after taking a joy ride in an ambulance. Griggs and band member Kevin Weaver come upon the vehicle, with keys inside, in the parking lot of a Tallahassee area Days Inn, where they are on a tour stopover. The men take the ambulance for a short ride and return to the lot, where police charge them with grand theft auto. Griggs and Weaver are released after posting $1,000 bail each.

July 13, 2000 James Brown is formally charged with assaulting Russell Eubanks, an employee of South Carolina Electric and Gas, with a steak knife after Eubanks visited Brown's Beech Island estate to check on reports that he was without electricity.

June 3, 2000 Allman Brothers guitarist Dickey Betts is arrested after allegedly trashing his house, threatening his wife's life, and then disappearing. He is captured and ordered to get psychiatric help.

September 21, 1999 While being searched at London's Heathrow Airport, Diana Ross allegedly assaults the security guard in question and is detained for five hours.

February 27, 1998 Motley Crue member Vince Neil, not to be outdone by Tommy Lee, announces an agreement with Internet Entertainment Group and Vivid Video to distribute a 60-minute home video of him having sex with two adult film models while on vacation in Hawaii.

February 16, 1998 At the Brit Awards, Chumbawamba drummer Danbert Nobacon dumps a bucket of ice water on UK Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. Of his stunt, the musician says, "It's a metaphor for the underdog pissing on the steps of Downing Street."

July 25, 1995 Nina Simone is arrested for firing a pellet gun at noisy teenagers playing near her home in the south of France, for which she is placed on an 18-month probation and ordered to seek counseling.

June 9, 1994 After a fight with boyfriend and NFL star Andre Rison, TLC singer Lisa "Left Eye" Lopes douses Rison's tennis shoes with lighter fluid and sets them on fire in a bathtub. The fire quickly melts the plexiglass tub and catches onto the frame of the house. Rison's mansion is burned to the ground and Lopes is charged with first degree arson. She is sentenced to five years probation and ordered to pay a $10,000 fine.

December 27, 1989 Chuck Berry is sued by the former cook of his restaurant - The Southern Air, in Wentzville, Missouri - who claims Berry installed hidden cameras in the ladies restrooms and collected the videos. Over 200 former customers take part in a class action suit against Berry, which is eventually settled out of court.

September 24, 1988 James Brown leads police on an hour-long, two-state car chase starting in Augusta, Georgia. Brown is arrested and eventually serves two years for a variety of charges.

December 7, 1987 The Replacements play a drunken, disastrous show at the Pine Street Theatre in Portland, Oregon, that ends with the band throwing their clothes into the audience. It becomes part of their lore and the topic of their song "Portland."

January 26, 1977 Original Fleetwood Mac lead guitarist Peter Green is committed to a mental hospital after threatening an accountant with an air rifle. The accountant was trying to deliver a royalty check, which Green insisted he didn't want.

September 29, 1976 At his 41st birthday party, a drunk Jerry Lee Lewis attempts to shoot a soda bottle with his .357 Magnum and instead hits his bass player, Norman Owens, twice in the chest. Owens makes a full recovery.

April 30, 1976 Human rock stereotype Keith Moon of The Who adds to his legend when he pays nine New York City cab drivers $100 each to block both ends of a street so he can throw furniture out of his room at the Hotel Navarro. Details of this story may have been exaggerated or embellished, but it is consistent with his behavior.

February 4, 1974 John Lennon begins his "Lost Weekend," which lasts 18 months. Separating from Yoko, he goes on an extended bender, often joined by his friend Nilsson.

December 2, 1973 The Who and their companions are jailed overnight in Montreal following $6,000 worth of hotel destruction inflicted after their show at the Forum.

May 16, 1969 During The Who's set at the Fillmore East in New York, a plainclothes policeman rushes the stage to tell the audience that a fire has broken out, but guitarist Pete Townshend, figuring him for a rabid fan, kicks him off. Literally. The guitarist is arrested onstage and later charged $30.

January 28, 1968 During their tour in Australia, members of The Who and The Small Faces, among others, are escorted off their flight from Adelaide to Essendon for drinking beer on the plane, being rowdy, and using "very bad language." Two of the flight's four attendants are said to be in tears.

August 24, 1967 Keith Moon, drummer for The Who, drives his Lincoln Continental (not a Rolls Royce, as is often thought), into the swimming pool at the Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan, to celebrate his 21st birthday, earning the entire band a lifetime ban from the chain.

November 19, 1960 While in Los Angeles during the filming of his seventh movie, Wild In The Country, Elvis Presley suffers a bit of road rage, pulling a gun on a group of passengers in another car who had supposedly insulted him.

September 24, 2019 Opera star Plácido Domingo, scheduled to star the next day in Macbeth at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City, backs out amid allegations of sexual misconduct that surfaced weeks earlier. This ends Domingo's association with The Met, where he had performed for the last 51 consecutive years.

February 13, 2019 In a New York Times story, seven female musicians accuse Ryan Adams of inappropriate and sometimes abusive behavior. His accusers include Phoebe Bridgers and his ex-wife, Mandy Moore. Adams' upcoming album release is cancelled and he's dropped from his label.

January 3, 2019 Lifetime airs the first installment of the six-part series Surviving R. Kelly, which documents the singer's alleged sex crimes. John Legend is among those speaking out against Kelly in the series.

June 14, 2018 At the end of his set at the World Cup opening ceremonies in Moscow, a petulant Robbie Williams flips off the camera.More

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