When you think crazy pop star, who comes to mind? Britney? Michael? Whitney? Blender magazine has comprised a list of the craziest pop stars ever. Check out their top 10 with commentaries.
10. Ozzy Osbourne:
Case History: His exploits include biting the heads off doves and bats, urinating on the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, and, when checking into a Betty Ford Clinic, asking for directions to the bar.
Crazy Moment: After a five-day drinking binge in 1989, Osbourne says that voices ordered him to kill his wife, Sharon. He tried to strangle her, saying, "We've decided you've got to go."
9. Ol' Dirty Bastard:
Case History: The Wu-Tang Clan's loose cannon. In 1999, when he was caught with 20 bags of crack, he asked police to make them "disappear."
8. Euronymous:
Case History: Oystien Aarseth changed his name to Euronymous as his band, Mayhem, emerged in the mid-'80s. After bandmate Per Yngve Ohlin — whose nickname was "Dead" — killed himself with a shotgun, Euronymous found the body; before calling the police, he picked up a camera and took some postmortem photos.
Crazy Moment: Euronymous ate a piece of Dead's brain and used pieces of the skull as jewelry.
7. Syd Barrett:
Case History: Barrett was central to the original Pink Floyd lineup, but he hated fame, and a diet of double-dipped LSD sugar cubes helped give him a nervous breakdown. He spent the final decades of his life as a recluse in rural England, before expiring in 2006.
6. Britney Spears:
Case History: TV breakdowns and panty-free good times with role model Paris Hilton. Nothing could have prepared her fans for the self-inflicted shearing that left her looking like G.I. Jane. Undaunted, she has proven capable of feeding the tabloids with shockers on an almost daily basis. This story is developing, and she is poised to move up a few crazy pegs on this list...
Crazy Moment: Her drunken 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander? Her sober marriage to Kevin Federline? Her January, 2008 refusal to return custody of her children to Fed-Ex'es bodyguard, resulting in a paramedic-assisted gurney ride to a local hospital? It's a tough call.
5. Sly Stone:
Case History: Sylvester Stewart practically invented funk, but his dazzling highs were followed by an endless, cocaine-induced low. Even in 1971, his sex-and-drugs regimen was so intense that his label had to tempt him with $1 million in cash to complete an album.
4. Whitney Houston:
Case History: Even Houston's drug-gobbling ex-hubby, Bobby Brown, must look at her and think, Now she's crazy. Long rumored to be suffering from cocaine and heroin addictions, she denied taking drugs even after she was booted from the 2000 Academy Awards for playing an imaginary piano.
3. Axl Rose:
Case History: Despite achieving global rock hegemony with 1987's Appetite for Destruction, all was not well in this guy's intellectual's jungle: He claimed Courtney Love tried to possess him at 1993's MTV Awards, and he's still working on the follow-up to G n'R's album.
Craziest Moment: After marrying Erin Everly in 1990, Rose bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and had two topiary elephants delivered by helicopter. The couple never moved into the property.
2. Brian Wilson:
Case History: In 1966, Wilson prepared for the Beach Boys' Smile sessions by packing $2,000 worth of hash, along with LSD and prescription amphetamines. He built a sandpit in his house, instructed his orchestra to wear toy fireman helmets — and then started hearing voices and feeling suicidal. After hospitalization, Wilson gorged on pills, steaks and cigarettes and ballooned to 300 pounds. Terrified of water, he stopped bathing. He spent three years in bed convinced that Phil Spector was coming to shoot him. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, manic depression and brain damage in the early '80s.
Craziest Moment: Meeting some youngsters backstage in 1970, Wilson introduced himself with "I'm Brian." "We know," one replied. "We're your children."
1. Michael Jackson:
Case History: Remember those innocent years when Jackson was merely so mental that he lived in an amusement park with llamas, chimps and the Elephant Man's skeleton? The craziest thing is that the most ridiculous rumors turned out to be true — he didn't see anything wrong with pan-generational slumber parties; he didn't have a nose left, let alone money. For his lifetime of lunacy, Wacko Jacko is the undisputed skin-whitening, baby-dangling, statue-building, crotch-grabbing, kiddie-cuddling King of Pop.
Tisha
