| >> | 1589078566921.jpg -(63570B / 62.08KB, 634x837) Thumbnail displayed, click image for full size. ![]() >>456593
>>456594
it's a shame they really sanitized his image in his old age cause I always knew of him as a pioneer of rock and roll but I never really knew his story until looking him up now that he died and holy shit, this guy was 420chan in the flesh back in the day
>he had been sexually involved with both sexes as a teenager. Because of his effeminate mannerisms, his father kicked him out of their family home at 15
>Penniman first got involved in voyeurism in his early twenties, when a female friend would drive him around and pick up men who would allow him to watch them have sex in the backseat of cars. Penniman's activity caught the attention of Macon police in 1955 and he was arrested after a gas station attendant reported sexual activity in a car Penniman was occupying with a heterosexual couple. Cited on a sexual misconduct charge, he spent three days in jail and was temporarily banned from performing in Macon.
>In the early 1950s, Penniman became acquainted with openly gay musician Billy Wright, who helped in establishing Penniman's look, advising him to use pancake makeup on his face and wear his hair in a long-haired pompadour style similar to his. As Penniman got used to the makeup, he ordered his band, the Upsetters, to wear the makeup too, to gain entry into predominantly white venues during performances, later stating, "I wore the make-up so that white men wouldn't think I was after the white girls. It made things easier for me, plus it was colorful too." In 2000, Richard told Jet magazine, "I figure if being called a sissy would make me famous, let them say what they want to." Penniman's look, however, still attracted female audiences, who would send him naked photos and their phone numbers. Groupies began throwing undergarments at Penniman during performances.
>During Penniman's heyday, his obsession with voyeurism carried on with his girlfriend Audrey Robinson. Penniman later wrote that Robinson would have sex with men while she sexually stimulated Penniman. Despite saying he was "born again" after leaving rock and roll for the church in 1957, Penniman left Oakwood College after exposing himself to a male student. After the incident was reported to the student's father, Penniman withdrew from the college. In 1962, Penniman was arrested for spying on men urinating in toilets at a Trailways bus station in Long Beach, California. After re-embracing rock and roll in the mid-1960s, he began participating in orgies and continued to be a voyeur.
>By 1972, he had developed an addiction to cocaine. He later lamented that period, "They should have called me Lil Cocaine, I was sniffing so much of that stuff!" By 1975, he had developed addictions to both heroin and PCP, otherwise known as "angel dust".
>He said of his cocaine addiction that he did whatever he could to use cocaine. Penniman admitted that his addictions to cocaine, PCP and heroin were costing him as much as $1,000 a day. In 1977, longtime friend Larry Williams once showed up with a gun and threatened to kill him for failing to pay his drug debt. Penniman later mentioned that this was the most fearful moment of his life because Williams's own drug addiction made him wildly unpredictable. Penniman did, however, also acknowledge that he and Williams were "very close friends" and when reminiscing of the drug-fueled clash, he recalled thinking "I knew he loved me—I hoped he did!"
Pour one out for a real one |
