Taking on the Thai army, a relationship-ending baby monitor,
and the Terminator that never was. Billy Idol has lived the life of the
quintessential rock star, but it hasn't always been a smooth ride.
Billy Idol was born in England, but actually spent some time living in America before ultimately
ending up back in Blighty with his mother, father, and sister. The transition was difficult,
he recalled to Louder, saying that he was often targeted as the, quote, "American kid." It's
perhaps unsurprising that Idol says he pushed back against not only his parents' devout faith, but
the idea of school and the kinds of qualifications that would set him on a respectable career path.
"And it was a difficulty for me when he began to show a lot more interest in music."
By the time he was a teenager, it caused some serious friction. As Idol recalled,
"I wasn't trying hard at school, and eventually, between the ages of fourteen and sixteen,
my dad didn't talk to me for a couple of years. I had really long hair,
and he couldn't stand it. That was when I got really interested in the rock scene."
According to what he told BBC Breakfast,
he was able to mend fences with his father before his death in 2014, saying,
"There were some lovely moments we had as he was starting to fade from the cancer he had."
His mother passed away several years later, and he told Metal Express Radio
that he hadn't been able to go to her funeral because of COVID-19 restrictions.
Louder described that a typical, early-80s day for a Billy Idol involved taking an
excess amount of drugs. Reportedly, Idol would drink a liter of tequila
to ease the worst of his symptoms as he came down from heroin. In hindsight,
an older and wiser Idol says that he knows just how many times he could have died during that era.
Things really came to a head around the release of 1986's
"Whiplash Smile," and he's said that he had been trying to get clean from heroin,
but his alternative method wasn't much better. As he recalled,
"I ended up taking tons of blow. I ended up smoking it. But I did get off heroin for a
while by doing that. There was a no-holds-barred feeling about the Eighties. We were partying as
if it was the end of the world. […] We were all living in a fool's paradise."
Idol spoke with The Daily Mail around the release of his autobiography,
"Dancing with Myself." He admitted that writing it had been a hard thing to do,
as he'd had a lot to confront. That included multiple overdoses,
but Idol says that even that hadn't been enough to make him rethink his lifestyle, saying,
"If the paramedics carted you off, you'd discharge yourself and be
back on it the next evening, because that was all that mattered to you."
"Covered in blood and sweat"
Billy Idol has been frank about the consequences and extent of his drug and alcohol addiction,
and recalled to Louder that there was one particular night that he destroyed a room
at Sunset Boulevard's notorious Chateau Marmont. Unable to buy his standard liter
of tequila to help take the edge off his withdrawal from heroin,
Idol destroyed the bungalow he'd rented. Idol wrote in his memoir,
"I took out the bungalow windows with my elbows,
screaming. I destroyed the TV and whatever else was in my immediate vicinity that sounded
good crashing to the floor. I was nude and covered in blood and sweat, going nuts."
Idol eventually woke up in the middle of the debris and heard sirens: Stumbling out of his
room, he was fully prepared to come face-to-face with law enforcement summoned to the scene of his
destructive spree. That wasn't the case, though, and he very quickly realized they
were actually called out for John Belushi, who had been found dead after an overdose.
It was MTV that catapulted Billy Idol to a whole new level of fame, and with that fame,
he told Louder, came his choice of women. During the time he was appearing regularly on MTV and
struggling with a heroin addiction, he was also in a long-term relationship with his girlfriend,
Perri Lister. Their son was born in 1988, and in 1989, another woman gave birth to Idol's daughter.
Lister had previously been so sick of rumors of Idol's affairs that in 1987, according to
Rocks Off, she held a press conference to state that she was Idol's one-and-only.
"Billy and myself are very happy.
Um, I know something like this may split up some people but we've been through a lot."
Idol, however, once justified his affairs by saying,
"Well, we were out on the road for a long time. […] You're out in the middle of nowhere,
and in those days there were no computers or cable television,
particularly, so one had to entertain oneself."
According to his memoir, Lister called it quits with Idol in 1989 after she overheard him on
the phone with a different lover while he was next to their son's baby monitor. Since then,
Closer says more and more has come out about just how unfaithful he was. Sonja Morgan of
"The Real Housewives of New York City" revealed that she dated him while he was with Lister,
even though she was terrified of what Lister might do. He also hooked up with
"Little House on the Prairie" star Melissa Gilbert around at that time.
According to his memoir, Idol was reeling from his breakup with Lister, and decided to head to
Thailand. The singer confessed to Louder that he took the trip with the intention of having
a raucous time. Although he said he and his buddy had planned to stick to drinking only,
rather than taking drugs, that resolution soon went out the window when a cab driver
provided them with some extremely potent heroin. He later took Valium
and tranquilizers to ease his comedown, and said that's when he started getting violent.
Far Out reports that Idol then kicked off a massively destructive rampage and caused an
estimated $250,000 worth of damages to the hotel he was staying in. Eventually, the staff tried to
kick him out, but Idol refused to leave. The staff then called in the local branch of the Thai army,
who ended up strapping him to a stretcher and forcefully removing him. Idol, in hindsight,
considered himself fortunate that he didn't end up in jail that day,
or on any of the other occasions where his substance abuse got him in trouble with the law.
"I actually did get caught here in a police sting
when I was, uh, when I was being addicted to crack for a while, to cope."
"Eyes Without A Face" is one of Billy Idol's biggest hits, and there's a terrifying story
about the song and the video, in which he very nearly became a face without eyes.
He wrote in his memoir that he had shot the video for the song, then hopped on a plane
and headed to the concert that was scheduled for immediately afterwards. He decided to get
some sleep on a nearby patch of grass, but when he woke up, he was in agonizing pain, writing,
"Something was wrong! The pain was so intense, and my eyes were gushing."
Idol wore contacts at the time, and he'd been wearing them for more than 36 hours. A combination
of the time, fog machines, fires, and lights from the video shoot had fused the lenses to his eyes.
It took a few days for his corneas to heal, but the video became award-winning and iconic.
According to the Los Angeles Times, in 1991, Idol and a friend were at a
West Hollywood restaurant when two women, including Amber Nevel and Laurie Bailey,
offered to give them a ride. During the drive, Nevel alleged that Idol had become hostile,
hitting her in the face and head and leaving her with cuts, bruises, and a concussion.
Idol initially gave a conflicting account of events, but ultimately entered a guilty plea
with the courts. In April of the following year, The Buffalo News reported that he had
been handed a $2,000 fine, was ordered to undergo counseling, and told to record a
series of public service announcements about the dangers of substance abuse.
In 2021, Billy Idol spoke with Forbes about his past,
and he was surprisingly honest about how he hadn't been prepared for fame when he hit it big.
He reflected on his mid-80s move from New York to Los Angeles,
saying that in New York, the recognition he found after being played on a near-constant
rotation on MTV had brought him to a new level of stardom. Idol explained,
"As a musician, it was like a little under the radar. Being a television star was nutty,
it was crazy. It was difficult going out, because it wasn't just music people who
knew about you. As MTV got bigger and bigger, it was like the whole world could recognize you."
While Idol says that he did find a bit of reprieve out in LA, he was also candid about
his self-sabotaging behavior, which included getting high and getting on the road. He stated,
"So really, I was sabotaging my own recovery in some way,
and that […] really made me go, 'Why did you come out here in the first place?'"
In 1990 the Los Angeles Times reported that Idol
was in a motorcycle accident that ended with him in the hospital,
undergoing a seven-hour surgery to repair the damage done to his right leg and left arm.
In 2021, Idol released his EP, The Roadside. In an interview with Q104.3,
the musician explained that he wrote the album in the height of the COVID-19
pandemic. Wanting to capture the experience of living in such an unpredictable time,
he drew inspiration from the time of the accident, which he described as, "a bit of a watershed
moment" that inspired him to cut back somewhat on his substance abuse and reckless behavior.
Idol said that the doctors had barely been able to save his leg, and they'd told him
that if the accident had happened just a few years earlier, they wouldn't have been able to.
"Thank God the orthopedic surgeons and the plastic
surgeons have developed uh, such a system of magic."
He told The Daily Mail that he spent weeks in the hospital, went through a series of other
surgeries, and was told by doctors how close he'd come to dying. While he said the accident made him
rethink some life choices, that didn't extend to them all: He was soon back on a new motorcycle.
While Idol told The Daily Mail that he was back on stage about eight months after the crash,
he still wasn't 100% — and that may have cost him a movie career.
An interview with Yahoo! Music points out that at the same time as Idol's accident,
he was also on the verge of breaking into movies in a big way. He had landed a part
in Oliver Stone's movie on The Doors, but his long recovery meant that his
previously decent-sized part got severely chopped. David Fincher was behind the video
for his "Cradle of Love," but once again, there was the fallout from the accident.
Idol couldn't walk at the time, which is why he ended up being depicted as a painting instead.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, his recovery also caused him to miss
out on his biggest potential role. James Cameron had actually cast Idol
as the T-1000 in "Terminator 2," a role that would ultimately go to
relative newcomer Robert Patrick after Idol wasn't physically able to handle the role.
When Billy Idol spoke to Forbes in 2021,
he spoke at length on the state of his career in the early 1990s.
With his popular videos getting played over and over again on MTV,
he was getting more and more radio play, but he was also getting recognized all the time, saying,
"That drives you a little mad and it makes you crazy, and I think it makes you have
psychological problems, probably some kind of PTSD and stuff like that, because it's weird."
He recalled reading a Rolling Stone article about
the paparazzi's harassment of Britney Spears which made him
unenthused about the way the entertainment industry was heading. Idol explained,
"I didn't want that for myself, so it was like, 'Yeah, I'd rather
pull back and not be successful, if that's what it meant for a while.'"
So for five years, he simply went on the down-low and disappeared from
touring and making new music. When he did reappear, his focus was more on the
music and less on the videos, a choice he says he's comfortable with today..
If you or anyone you know is struggling with addiction issues,
help is available. Visit the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
website or contact SAMHSA's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).