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nice, well-adjusted Michael Jackson.
Connoisseurs will already be familiar with the one
about a typically dishevelled Van Morrison turning
up late for a party (“Did anyone order a minicab?”
shouted the unfortunate who answered the door),
and the message Rod Stewart carved into a tabletop
when he learned that Sting was to be the next user of
the Lear jet he was travelling in (“Sting, how come
you ain’t go no sense of humour, you cunt?”). But
who’d have guessed that underneath his carefully
cultivated likeable exterior, Phil Collins seethes with
rage at being perceived as “the nice man of pop”?
Eventually, he snapped when an unchallenging interviewer
asked whether he was really as nice as he
seems: “Why don’t you ask my ex-wife?”
For celebrity bitchiness, look no further than Elton
John’s wedding present to Rod Stewart of a £10 gift
voucher with instructions to “buy something nice for
the home”. And for a real surprise, turn to the chapter
on the Moody Blues behaving badly, which features a
naked, comatose young woman wedged securely into a
washbasin by her arse while Graeme Edge fires arrows
at policemen who’ve been called out to investigate the
mild-mannered prog-rockers’ raucous partying.
BUY Keith Altham books online from and
Best stories? Well, there’s a great one about Marc
Bolan being evicted from the backstage area of a
Rolling Stones gig for sexually molesting Mick Jagger.
“Get him out of here,” bellowed the indignant
leathery Stone. “He just grabbed my balls.” “I didn’t
realise they were sacrosanct,” responded the Electric
Elf as he was marched away by burly security guards.
But by a whisker, the accolade has to go to Terence
Trent D’Arby, the “silly twisted boy” whose fall
from public favour was even more meteoric than his
rise. D’Arby seems to have crammed plenty of overindulgence
into his brief brush with fame, but one
episode proved too much for his female manager. She
resigned when he rang her late at night in her hotel room
demanding that she procure condoms for his latest female
acquaintance. It seems this sexually provocative
performer was too embarrassed to make the purchase
himself. But before leaving, the manager phoned down
to reception in their five-star hotel, whose staff were
made of sterner stuff. Without batting an eyelid, the
servile concierge entered the celeb’s bedchamber bearing
a silver platter on which a selection of small foil
packets were arranged tastefully and asked if madam
would care to make her selection. �
019
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