This was followed by several drug and assault charges in 2005 and despite all odds, Doherty and the Babyshambles were signed up by his old record label Rough Trade. Many people said they were even better than the Libertines, but their success constantly teetered between triumph and disaster. Their fans were never certain whether their hero would turn up, and if he did what his behaviour and performance on stage would be like. Several disruptions and even cancellations have only served to reinforce Doherty’s reputation for unreliability. Many people have said of Doherty, ‘If Pete wasn’t a junkie he would be ten times bigger than he is now!’
an explosive couple
Pete Doherty’s name has long been romantically linked with supermodel Kate Moss, who herself has been the subject of constant scandal. Doherty tried to help Moss to launch her music career by teaching her to play guitar and inviting her to sing on Babyshambles’ debut album. After a very volatile romance, which was off as much as it was on, Doherty announced in April 2007 that the couple were engaged. The announcement took place during one of Babyshambles’ concerts when Moss was appearing on stage with the band, and shortly afterwards the couple were seen house hunting in trendy areas of London. However, by July the romance was in tatters after Doherty was seen leaving a nightclub with another girl on his arm.
Pete Doherty is a vulnerable, yet talented young man, who has been unusually honest about this substance abuse. He continues to be in trouble with the law, even though his friends and family have pleaded with him to try and get on top of his addiction. It appears that everything about his lifestyle is not only self-destructive but bent on destroying people around him as well, and yet for some reason he continues to be more and more successful. Maybe he is just one of the few people who actually survives on the scandal that follows him wherever he goes.
PART THREE: Radio and TV Personalities
Alan Freed
Alan Freed was a pioneering disc jockey, or DJ, who made his name as one of the seminal figures that introduced the new sound of rock ’n’ roll to white teenagers in the 1950s. In fact, he is credited with having introduced the term ‘rock ’n’ roll’ to the mainstream, deriving it from a slang term in rhythm and blues (R & B) meaning to make love. However, early in the following decade, Freed found himself at the centre of a huge scandal about ‘payola’, or the practise of bribing DJs to play records. Although the practise was widespread in the broadcasting industry at the time, it was Freed who took the rap for it and it destroyed his career.
The Moondog Coronation Ball
Alan Freed was born Albert James Freed on 15 December 1921. His early years were spent in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, and when he was 12 the family moved to Salem, Ohio. There, he formed a band in high school and called it the Sultans of Swing, a name that Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits later used in the hit song of that name. Freed played trombone in the band.
On leaving school, Freed went to work in the broadcasting industry, beginning by working as a sports commentator. However, he soon gravitated towards music and became known for his exciting selections of new jazz and pop sounds. By 1949 he had made a name for himself as a music DJ and moved to Cleveland, where he began to host an R & B show on air, calling himself ‘Moondog’ after a way-out experimental street musician in New York. The first Moondog show was broadcast on 11 July 1951 and caused a sensation, so much so that when he decided to host a big show for more than 10,000 fans at the Cleveland Arena, calling it ‘The Moondog Coronation Ball’, an audience of more than 20,000 fans crashed the gates. The show was cancelled by the authorities, but it was clear that Freed’s music was hugely popular, and the episode went down in history as the first genuine ‘rock’ concert.
Inter-racial rock ’n’ roll
After this Freed moved to New York, where he took a job at WINS radio, playing what he termed rock ’n’ roll, which basically meant R & B for a teenage audience. He put together theatre shows all over the city, featuring black performers – whom he termed rock ’n’ roll artists – and almost single-handedly created a new genre in music. Soon, the music papers were advertising rock ’n’ roll records and there were several movies featuring the music, in which Freed himself starred. So popular was the new music that in 1957, Freed got his own TV show on ABC, which was broadcast throughout the nation. However, when one of the rock’n’roll’s youngest stars, Frankie Lymon, was seen dancing with a white girl, the southern states were infuriated, and ABC chose to cancel the show.
It was clear that all Freed wanted to do was play the music he loved and introduce it to new fans, but the success of the new craze, and its appeal to both black and white audiences, created enormous controversy around the country. The authorities tried to find different means of stopping him in his tracks, cancelling shows and blaming him for any disturbances that occurred at his concerts. In 1958 a fight broke out at a stage show near Boston, and the authorities there accused Freed of inciting audience members to riot. However, the charges were dropped when it became obvious that he had had no intention of causing such violence, but the radio station he worked for, WINS, still decided not to renew his contract. Undaunted, Freed found another job on a New York radio station and hosted a dance show that was televised in the area.
The ‘payola’ scandal breaks
However, this period of stability did not last long. Towards the end of the 1950s, a major investigation into the dealings of the recording industry was launched, and Freed’s dealings came under scrutiny. It was found that he had received payments from record companies to play certain records. He tried to mount a defence that the payments were for ‘consultations’, but nobody believed him, and he was fired from both his radio and TV positions as presenter.
It seems likely that Freed did, in fact, accept bribes to play records, since this was common practice throughout the music industry at the time. By focussing on Freed, and using him as a scapegoat, the leaders of the industry were able to show that they were doing something about the illegal financial activities that characterised it. A further benefit, for the authorities at least, was that they got rid of someone who was threatening to break down the barriers of race that had so carefully been erected in American society, over hundreds of years, both in the north and the south, for a new generation of teenagers.
Freed found guilty
Freed continued his controversial career in Los Angeles, at the radio station KDAY, which was owned by the same company as WINS. However, he soon fell foul of the powers that be when he tried to promote live shows in the city. The station forbade him to do, so and in response he handed in his resignation. He went back to New York where he presented a live twist show, but when the twist craze died down, he found himself out of a job again. Unable to find work in the city, he moved to Miami and began to drink heavily. Before long he had been fired from his job there as well.
Meanwhile, the payola investigation was grinding on, and in December 1962 he was finally found guilty on two counts of commercial bribery. He received a fine of $300. From then on he was unable to find work at all, and went to live in Palm Springs, California. There, his drinking increased, until he developed cirrhosis of the liver. He died on 20 January 1965, ostensibly of the disease, but his friends attested to the fact that he died a broken man, in a state of deep despair.
Since his death, his impact on contemporary rock music has been reassessed, and he is now recognised as one of the leading figures of rock ’n’ roll. In 1986, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and in 1991 he was commemorated with a star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame. Today, numerous music books cite his influence on the development of rock ’n’ roll as paramount. Sadly, he was only given credit for launching the new sound after he died; instead, during his life he took the blame for the financial irregularities surrounding the music industry, rather than being celebrated for playing great music to a new generation of fans, and in so doing attempting to foster better relationships between black and white people in America.
Martha St
ewart
Martha Stewart, a former stockbroker and fashion model, is a wealthy woman who was named America’s third most powerful female in 2001 by the Ladies Home Journal. She is the author of several books and magazines and has hosted two popular daytime television programmes – the last person you would expect to become involved in a scandal. However, in 2002 Stewart’s world started to fall apart when she was accused of insider trading and other felonies.
brief background
Martha Helen Kostyra was born on 3 August 1941 in the industrial city of Jersey in New Jersey, USA. Her mother, Martha, was a schoolteacher and her father, Edward, worked as a pharmaceuticals salesman. Martha proved to be a hardworking student and won herself a partial scholarship to Barnard College in New York. To help try and pay her way through college Martha did a small amount of modelling, which turned into a successful career after her graduation. In her second year at college, Martha married Andrew Stewart, who was studying law. In 1965 Martha had a baby girl and was forced to give up modelling, but always being a career girl at heart she didn’t let this hold her back. In 1967 she started a new career as a stockbroker – working for her father-in-law. Her husband formed a publishing house but when Wall Street was hit by the recession in 1973, the Stewarts decided to leave New York and moved to a 17th-century farmhouse in Westport, Connecticut. They undertook the ambition job of restoring the property, which they did to such high standards it still appears in Martha’s television programmes.
Martha had another change of career in 1976 and opened a catering business with a friend from her college days. She ran the business from the basement of her home and within a very short time the enterprise was worth over one million dollars. Using the profits from her business, Martha opened a retail store in Wesport and sold speciality foods for entertaining.
a prolific writer
Martha was a prolific writer and several of her articles appeared in the New York Times. Her flair for writing was noticed and she became editor and columnist for the House Beautiful magazine. This was followed by several books on food for entertaining, weddings, Christmas, gardening and restoring old properties.
Regular appearance on television soon made Martha Stewart a household name in the United States and with her own magazine, Martha Stewart Living, it appeared she couldn’t put a foot wrong.
the scandal breaks
Needless to say people who are constantly in the limelight have to face unfair criticism and bad press, but in 2002 Martha Stewart was faced with a far greater challenge. The Justice Department and Securities Exchange Department started an investigation into her personal stock trading, which resulted in her being charged with insider trading.
Martha was visibly shaken when charges were brought against her for selling shares in a pharmaceutical company, ImClone, just days before its application for a new drug were turned down. Despite maintaining her innocence, Martha’s reputation suffered greatly over the next couple of years and she had to face trial in early 2004.
The indictments against her included: selling some stock because someone told her an insider was selling; lying to investigators; and conspiring with someone else to lie to investigators. Despite the fact the course dismissed the original accusation of insider trading from which the other two charges stemmed, the trial still took place and Martha Stewart was forced to defend herself.
She told the court that she had sold her stock in ImClone because of a previous instruction she had given to her stockbroker to sell stocks if they dropped below $60 dollars. Unfortunately, the jury didn’t believe her story. In the end the whole case rested on the testimony of a broker’s assistant, Douglas Faneuil, who claimed that he had been told by his boss to contact Mrs Stewart because the head of ImClone was selling his stock and that she should do the same.
The government then decided to charge Faneuil as being a participant in the conspiracy, and hey presto, the broker’s assistant changed his story! In theory this made a mock of the entire trial.
Despite all the uncertainties and lies that had obviously been told, the jury still found Martha Stewart guilty of misleading federal investigators and was given a five-month prison sentence, to be followed by a two-year period of supervision.
While waiting for her appeal, Martha served her time in a minimum security prison, Alderson Federal Prison Camp, and was finally released on 4 March 2005. On 6 January 2006 the appeals court turned down her appeal and upheld the jury’s verdict.
surviving the scandal
After being released from prison, Martha was forced to home confinement and was required to wear an electronic ankle bracelet to monitor her at all times. Despite all the scandal, Martha Stewart made an amazing comeback and returned to daytime television without any loss to the viewing figures.
Although her marriage did not survive the scandal, she has gone on to bigger and better things. It has been said many times that not many people could have pulled off such an amazing comeback. Martha Stewart has everything it takes to be successful and a scandal – whatever the scale – will not stop her in her tracks.
Michael Barrymore
One of the biggest scandals to hit British showbusiness in recent times is that of entertainer Michael Barrymore. Barrymore’s zany personality and catchphrase ‘all right’, pronounced in a strong cockney London accent, made him a favourite as a TV game show presenter, comedian and actor, until a major scandal rocked his career and left him a broken man.
Coming out
Barrymore was born Michael Ciaran Parker on 4 May 1952 in Bermondsey, then a working-class area of London. He lived with his parents on the Dickens Estate but his childhood was marred by sadness. Barrymore was only 11 years old when his father packed up and left, which left a big rift in his life. At the age of 15, he left school and took a job as a Butlins Redcoat, entertaining the public at a local holiday camp. Barrymore showed a natural talent for the work and began to put together an act as a stand-up comic. His skill soon became evident and he was soon appearing on television talent shows. As a result of his successful performances on these shows, he was hired as the warm-up act for television audiences, and by the early 1980s had become a regular face on television comedy shows.
Michael’s career really started to take off under the guidenace of his wife and manager, Cheryl, whom he married in 1976. In 1986 Barrymore made a name for himself with his quirky type of humour on the entertainment show, Strike It Lucky. Other shows followed, and he was voted the UK’s top television star as well as earning enormous sums of money. The crowds loved him, they couldn’t get enough of him, but fame was starting to take its toll.
It was during this time that Barrymore started to have problems with an alcohol addiction. According to his account of the period, he wanted to stop drinking, but his wife Cheryl, also his manager, did not feel he had a problem. However, in 1995, after years of rumours, Barrymore announced that he was gay when being interviewed on the radio. Aware that the news was now out, Barrymore went into a gay pub in London’s east end and told a surprised crowd of drinkers that he was a homosexual, advising them to start spreading the news. Needless to say it wasn’t long before the tabloids got hold of the story, and it was splashed across the front pages of every newspaper.
Sexual abuse
Barrymore and Cheryl separated shortly after he broke the news of his sexuality. Despite several attempts at reunions, it soon became clear that there was not much hope of sustaining the relationship. After the couple divorced in 1997, Cheryl Barrymore published her autobiography Catch a Falling Star, in which she revealed the negative side of Barrymore’s personality.
His career took a nosedive when viewing figures started to decline on his television shows. He went on to present two more programmes for London Weekend Television – My Kind of Music and Kids Do the Funniest Things – and even tried his hand at acting. But gossip and scandal were never far from his door.
In 2000 Barrymore received a police warning when they found some drugs in a hotel room,
and in 2001 allegedly he appeared drunk on stage at a fund-raising event for a children’s charity. It was evident that Barrymore had long been in a mentally fragile state, and matters came to a head in 2001, when on March 31 a young man named Stuart Lubbock was found dead at Barrymore’s home. Witnesses claimed that the man had died in Barrymore’s swimming pool; some thought he had been seen floating on the top of the water, while others claimed he had sunk to the bottom. The scandal reached a high point when it was reported that Lubbock had injuries to his anal area, suggesting that he had been the victim of sexual abuse before he died. Witnesses reported that Barrymore had been seen rubbing cocaine on to Lubbock’s gums that evening, but there was no evidence that he had been forcing him to take the drug. In the end Barrymore was cautioned for possession of cannabis, but there were no other charges.
The following day, Barrymore voluntarily checked himself into the Marchwood Priory in Southampton where he hoped he could conquer his problems with addiction and depression.
Sordid scandal
Infamous Scandals Page 12
