Billy Idol Was Once Forcibly Removed From a Hotel by the Thai Army

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.

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.”

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