20 Musician Rumours That Turned Out to be TRUE

#20: Keith Richards Snorted His Dad's Ashes

Grief affects everyone in different ways. For the legendary Rolling Stones guitarist, Keith Richards, his father’s death ended up contributing to one of rock and roll’s most infamous rumours. As the story goes, Richards mixed his dad’s ashes in with that old white powder he used to be so fond of and snorted it up his nose. At first, it just seemed like a classic case of rockstar myth-making, until Richards himself confirmed that it was true. For a pretty bizarre epilogue to this one, he went on to reveal that he granted his own children permission to do the same to his own ashes one day. Funny how that works, right?

#19: Little Richard Fired Jimi Hendrix

This one might sound a little confusing on the surface, but hear us out. Jimi Hendrix was already a damn good guitarist by the time 1965 came around, earning a spot in Little Richard’s backing band. But there was a problem. Hendrix was clearly a budding superstar. Everything from the way he carried himself to his ability to draw attention on-stage didn’t sit well with Little Richard. In other words, Jimi had a habit of upstaging the iconic performer, which is a big no-no when your job is to disappear into the background. Sure enough, Jimi was ousted from the band shortly after his appointment - and the rest, as they say, is history.

#18: Van Morrison Recorded 30 Songs In One Day

Want to know how it sounds when a legendary soul singer sings about his desire to purchase a Danish pastry? Well, then you might want to check out the infamous recordings that brought his time with Bang Records to an end. Morrison wanted out of his contract, but owed the label a total of 36 songs. And so, in a truly petulant move, Morrison picked up a terrible-sounding guitar, took to the studio, and made an album off the top of his head in a single day. Obviously, Bang Records listened to them and realised they were totally unreleasable, so in the grand scheme of things, Van got his way! A year later, he released his masterpiece album, “Astral Weeks.”

#17: Gram Parsons' Friend Stole His Dead Body

Gram Parsons is a hero of his era - known best for his time with The Byrds and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Like many musicians who burn bright, his life was cut short due to an overdose at the age of 26. One major rumour that followed his death was that a friend of his stole his body in an attempt to cremate him and spread his ashes at the Joshua Tree National Park. Supposedly, this stemmed from a deal the two of them made. Turns out, the story is true. His road manager, Phil Kaufman, and another friend stole the hearse, poured gasoline on the coffin, and set it ablaze. They were fined $750 for their theft, and Parsons was eventually brought to Louisiana.

#16: David Bowie Smuggled Drugs into Rehab for Iggy Pop

The mid-70s were a dark time for rock and roll legends David Bowie and Iggy Pop. Each of them was fighting their own personal battles with addiction, but it was Iggy who checked himself into rehab first. Speaking about that point in his life, he recalled being very worried about Bowie’s health and mental state. What we later found out was that the Thin White Duke himself was actually visiting Iggy and smuggling substances in for him to take. Eventually, both men cleaned up and achieved sobriety, but they certainly didn’t make things easy for themselves.

#15: Drake Having a Son

In 2018, when Pusha T released the diss track “The Story of Adidon,” he revealed to the world that Drake had been hiding the existence of a son he had fathered. Talk about taking a beef to a new level, right? It didn’t take long for the media pressure to force an answer out of Drake. Not too long after Pusha’s track dropped, the Canadian rapper confirmed that he had a son named Adonis on his album “Scorpion.” He also claimed that he wasn’t trying to hide his son from the world. Instead, he was attempting to protect him from all of that attention. With the cat out of the bag, Drake has at least embraced being a bit more open about it all!

#14: Ozzy Osbourne Bit Off A Bat's Head

PETA, look away now! The late, great Ozzy Osbourne certainly had a few wild stories to tell over the course of his career. Maybe the most famous on-stage moment of all came when Ozzy was thrown a live bat by a fan and proceeded to bite its head off. He obviously didn’t think it was real… because why would anyone throw an actual bat at a rockstar? Either way, the damage was done. He even had to go to get checked for rabies after the show. He spoke candidly about it in the years that followed, but this did become one of the most discussed myths in rock history for a while.

#13: Van Halen Banned Brown M&Ms on Their Tour

On the surface, Van Halen not wanting brown M&Ms anywhere near them backstage sounds like the most rock-star diva thing imaginable. After years of the band being ridiculed for such a ridiculous entry on their tour rider, the truth emerged. Removing the brown M&Ms was actually a subtle way for the band to make sure that the organisers of each and every venue they played were being professional. Van Halen had a pretty elaborate stage show at the time with a whole bunch of pyrotechnics - meaning that they couldn’t take any chances with mistakes. So, if a venue were diligent enough to remove all of the brown M&Ms, they probably had a solid attention to detail. It’s kinda genius!

#12: Axl Rose Used Real Intimate Sounds in His Song

Axl Rose is the type of rockstar who splits people down the middle. If there’s one thing that even his biggest haters can’t take away from him, it’s that he definitely doesn’t care what people think. And so, when Guns N’ Roses were in the process of recording the song “Rocket Queen,” Rose decided to go above and beyond to be as outrageous as possible. What did he come up with? Well, he decided to record the sounds of him getting intimate with his bandmate Steven Adler’s girlfriend in the studio and place the audio right in the middle of the song. Yep, you heard us right. They actually added some very risqué noises to the track’s midsection.

#11: Mackenzie Phillips’ Relationship with John Phillips

For many people, it’s hard to think about the iconic folk rock vocal group The Mamas & the Papas without their thoughts drifting to the dark backstory that followed their second iteration. When the original line-up disbanded, group-leader John Phillips created The New Mamas & the Papas. Initially, it was seen as a success, especially on the touring circuit. But when rumours began to swirl about an inappropriate relationship between Phillips and his daughter, Mackenzie, it changed things. Years later, Mackenzie would reveal that she had first taken illegal substances as a child and that her father had been abusing her since she was a teenager, just one night before her wedding to her first husband.

#10: Prince Evangelized Door-To-Door for Jehovah’s Witnesses

For the better part of his remarkable career, Prince was known for defying societal expectations with his brazenly provocative music. For that reason, many were shocked when he decided to become a Jehovah's Witness in 2001. The iconic musician was said to have taken his newfound faith very seriously and it was once reported that, like many members of the religion, he practiced door-to-door evangelism. While that remained a rumor for years, a Minnesota couple later confirmed that Prince once knocked on their door to proselytize to them. Apparently, the purple star would wear disguises and introduce himself as “Brother Nelson” to evade being recognized. But when you’re as famous as Prince, that can be a pretty daunting task.

#9: Rihanna and A$AP Rocky’s Relationship

Rumors of a romantic relationship had followed music stars Rihanna and A$AP Rocky for years. The two had been friends for a long time, with A$AP opening for her Diamonds World Tour in 2013, and Rihanna starring in his “Fashion Killa” music video later that year. The rumors intensified after that, but with both musicians getting romantically involved with other people, they slowly died down. However, after Rihanna parted ways with her Saudi billionaire boyfriend Hassan Jameel, the gossip mills began churning once again. Their relationship was confirmed in 2021, after A$AP referred to Rihanna as “the love of my life” in an interview. The couple welcomed their 3rd child together in 2025.

#8: Nikki Sixx’s Near-Death Experience

As the co-founder and bassist of the heavy metal band Mötley Crüe, Nikki Sixx was a rock music staple throughout the ‘80s. But at the peak of his career, Sixx struggled with substance use disorder, which gravely affected his personal and professional life. In fact, at one point, it was rumored that the musician had overdosed on heroin and died. This was technically true… for two minutes. According to reports, on December 23rd 1987, Sixx was rushed to the hospital after overdosing on the substance. He was pronounced clinically dead for two minutes before a paramedic pumped him with two shots of adrenaline and revived him. The out-of-body experience reportedly inspired Sixx to write the band’s 1989 anthem “Kickstart My Heart”.

#7: Tupac’s Friends Smoked His Ashes

The world lost beloved music icon Tupac Shakur on September 13th 1996. The late rapper was reportedly cremated the next day and there has been so much speculation as to what happened to his ashes. For years, there was a longstanding rumor that members of Tupac’s group Outlawz had smoked his ashes to honor him. In 2011, members of the group gave credence to the news by confirming in an interview that they did, in fact, do that. According to them, they believed the rapper explicitly asked for it in the lyrics of his posthumous song “Black Jesuz”. Although they claimed to have done so in the presence of Tupac’s mom, the Shakur family later released a statement denouncing their actions.

#6: Michael Jackson Wrote Music for “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”

The video game “Sonic the Hedgehog 3” was released in 1994 to critical and commercial acclaim. While many fans were in awe of the much improved gameplay, some others noticed striking similarities between the music and that of pop icon Michael Jackson. Jackson’s involvement in the “Sonic” soundtrack remained a rumor for years, until it was seemingly confirmed by one of the game’s creators, Yuji Naka, in 2022. Apparently, Jackson and his team had recorded complete tracks for the soundtrack, but just as production on the game was underway in 1993, the musician was hit with assault allegations. This seems to have played a part in Jackson receiving no credits for his involvement.

#5: Ozzy Osbourne & the Ants

Heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne has admittedly done a lot of outrageous things throughout his long, storied career. But this one takes things to a new level of extreme. While on his “Bark at the Moon” tour in 1984, Osbourne stopped over at a Florida hotel alongside opening acts Mötley Crüe. The story goes that on one particular afternoon, the former Black Sabbath frontman took a straw and snorted a line of ants with it. While this may horrify the average person, it probably won’t be much of a surprise to anyone familiar with Osbourne’s antics. The rumor was confirmed in the band’s autobiography “The Dirt” and depicted in the same-titled Netflix film.

#4: KISS Inject Their Blood Into Comic Books

In the 1970s, New York band KISS took rock music by storm. The original four-man lineup was known for their signature white-and-black make-up and comic book-style costumes. In 1977, at the height of their popularity, the group teamed up with Marvel’s Stan Lee to create a series of KISS comic books. Seemingly as a marketing ploy, each member of the band was reported to have drawn a bit of their blood, which was then mixed with the printing ink for the comics. Turns out this was in fact true, as confirmed by KISS founding member Paul Stanley, and Lee himself. If that’s not the most shock rock-esque thing to ever happen in the comic book universe, we don’t know what is.

#3: Cass Elliot & Keith Moon Died in the Same Apartment

While their paths may never have crossed, Cass Elliot and Keith Moon shared more similarities than they could imagine. Not only were they members of music groups, but they both met their untimely demise at age 32. Even weirder, this reportedly happened in the same apartment, only four years apart. The Mayfair, London flat belonged to Harry Nilsson, a singer-songwriter mutual friend of theirs who was mostly on the road and rented it out to his musician pals. Elliot died there on July 29th 1974, while in London for a concert. Four years later, Moon moved into the apartment, where he also passed away from a drug overdose. Unsurprisingly, Nilsson moved out of the flat and sold it off.

#2: Mick Jagger & David Bowie’s Intimate Relationship

Two revered icons, Mick Jagger and David Bowie are both regarded among the most influential musicians of the 20th century. The two were first linked in the early ‘70s and soon grew so close that rumors of an intimate relationship between them filled the media. They even released a duet cover of the song “Dancing in the Street,” which hit number one in their home country of the UK. In 2012, journalist Christopher Andersen released a shocking biography of Jagger, in which he seemingly confirms rumors of an affair. According to the book, Bowie’s then-wife Angie found both men naked in bed together. While she didn’t seem to interrupt - ahem - anything, Angie was “absolutely dead certain” something had, in fact, happened between them.

#1: Charles Manson Wrote a Song for the Beach Boys

Before he founded and led the infamous Manson Family cult, Charles Manson was a struggling musician hoping for his big break. After leaving prison in the late 1960s, Manson made the acquaintance of the Beach Boys’ drummer Dennis Wilson, who hoped to sign him to a recording contract. Although that never came to fruition, Manson actually wrote a song titled “Cease to Exist” for the band. The lyrics were eventually reworked and released in 1968 as “Never Learn Not to Love”. This served as the B-side to their moderately successful single “Bluebirds over the Mountain”. In the end, Manson received no writing credit for the song, and a little over two years later, he was convicted of the Tate and LaBianca murders.

What musical rumours do you think deserve a place on our list? Be sure to let us know in the comments.