Trashing a hotel room on tour has become synonymous with the hedonist, rock and roll lifestyle, but Billy Idol took it one step further when he caused so much chaos at a Thailand hotel that the Thai army had to forcibly remove him from the property. How’s that for epitomizing his “Rebel Yell” attitude?
What started as a so-called “sex holiday” to help Idol get over his recent split from his long-time girlfriend Perri Lister ended as a heroin-fueled rampage that led to $250,000 worth of damage and an unexpected escort courtesy of the Thailand military.
Videos by American Songwriter
The Rambunctious Crew Went From Booze To Mystery Powder
By the late 1980s, Billy Idol was bonafide rock royalty and no stranger to the “sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle.” And indeed, that’s exactly what Idol and his friends were after when they rented out the penthouse suite of Thailand’s Orient Hotel. Still, the crew had some boundaries. According to Idol in an interview with Louder Sound, they planned on only drinking.
However, Idol said, “After about a week, drinking all the time was getting really heavy, so we asked this cab driver if he could get us some blow. He went off and came back with this thin vial. It was six or seven inches long. We looked at each other like, ‘What do you think this is? Because c****** doesn’t usually come in a long thing like that.’ My friend put his finger in it and had a taste. It wasn’t blow.” On the contrary, it was heroin.
Idol and company stayed at the Orient Hotel for three weeks doing copious amounts of the potent opioid. Their drug use got so bad that some reports claim that a fellow hotel guest (who, in a strange twist of pop culture fate, was Mel Gibson) found Idol passed out at the entrance of the elevator with the doors opening and closing on his body. When he wasn’t unconscious, Idol was smashing his hotel room to bits—a violent side effect downers often gave him.
The Hotel Called The Thai Army To Escort Billy Idol Off The Property
After three weeks of chaotic debauchery, Idol had racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of property damage. Unsurprisingly, the Orient Hotel was eager to have their superstar guest and his party check out. But as they learned the hard way, it takes a lot more than a firm question to get a punk like Billy Idol to listen to authorities.
More specifically, it ended up requiring several Thai military officials and a healthy dose of sedatives. The military officers reportedly strapped Idol to a gurney, injected him with an unknown tranquilizer, and removed him from the hotel. “I was very lucky,” Idol later said about the experience on a Behind the Music episode (via The West).
“I expect they could’ve put me in prison.” Idol was right. At the time of his heroin-laced escapades, Thailand was notoriously strict on the possession of narcotics (especially rockstar quantities of narcotics). Those found guilty of possessing or distributing heroin could face life in prison or the death penalty.
Eventually, the rock and roll lifestyle lost its sheen for the “White Wedding” singer. “It takes a long time for drug addicts to see,” Idol told The West nearly two decades after his run-in with the Thai military. “There’s a honeymoon period, and then it wears off. It takes you forever, 10 to 15 years really, to see the honeymoon was over a long time ago.”
Photo by Karl Walter/Getty Images
More Did You Know
-
Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton performing, Photo by GBH Archives/YouTube -
The Rolling Stones in concert, Tour of Europe '76, Earls Court Arena – Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (Photo by Graham Wiltshire/Shutterstock) -
Rock band: The Rolling Stones: – Mick Jagger, Keith Richards (Photo by Roger Bamber/Shutterstock) -
Singer and songwriterJohn Lennon (1940 – 1980) with his wife Yoko Ono, signing copies of her conceptual art book 'Grapefruit' at Selfridges, London, 15th July 1971. (Photo by Jack Kay/Daily Express/Getty Images) -
Despite its fantastical origin story of surviving a shrapnel attack in the Vietnamese jungle, the D-28 met its demise on a flight to Hawaii. Not only did the turbulent flight damage the instrument in storage; someone later stole the guitar from the luggage carousel. Mitchell was never able to find her long-lost instrument, something she’s lamented for years. Aside from the sentimental connection guitarists typically have to their first ax, Mitchell was particularly fond of her Martin for functional reasons. After a bout of childhood polio affected Mitchell’s ability to form chord shapes in standard tuning, the singer-songwriter had to adapt with eccentric tunings that allowed her to create rich harmonic structure with limited mobility. Whether open, an octave below, or otherwise, Mitchell’s unique tunings placed stress on the guitar neck that it wasn’t originally made to endure. Moreover, to ensure the dissonance within her tunings was purposeful and not merely off-pitch, Mitchell needed a guitar with pristine intonation—something she frequently lauded the D-28 for having. “I need really good intonation,” she explained to Acoustic Guitar. “One of the signs of really good intonation is how flashy the harmonics are with a light touch. You should be able to get them to bloom like jewels.” While Mitchell has found other guitars that come close in that department, as she put it in her 1996 magazine interview, “I’ve never found an acoustic that could compare with it.” Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images -
Drummer Ringo Starr of English rock band the Beatles during a reception at the London home of the group's manager Brian Epstein, 20th May 1967. The Beatles' song 'A Day In The Life' had recently been banned by the BBC for its references to drug-taking. (Photo by John Pratt/Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) -
English rock band the Beatles at the BBC television studios in London before leaving for a concert tour of Germany, and afterwards Japan, 16th June 1966. From left to right, they are Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and George Harrison. (Photo by Central Press/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) -
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JUNE 11: (L-R) Tommy Thayer, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons, and Eric Singer of KISS attend the 2021 Tribeca Festival screening of "Biography: KISStory" at The Battery on June 11, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images)