DISGRACELAND
Musicians. Movie stars. Mayhem. Murder. DISGRACELAND is the award-winning podcast that tells the unbelievable but true stories from the dark side of entertainment history. Rockstars getting away with murder and behaving very badly. Actors engulfed in scandal. Pop stars plotted against and terrorized. Taylor Swift escaping her stalkers. Jerry Lee Lewis allegedly murdering his wife. Brittany Murphy’s suspicious death. Big Lurch, the hip hop star who ate his roommate. The assassination of John Lennon. The Grateful Dead, the CIA, the LSD that turned on the USA, and the real reason Neil Young gave Charles Manson his motorcycle. Robert Downey Jr.’s redemptive rise from addiction. Anthony Bourdain’s destructive lust for life. The true crime stories that inspired Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska and the serial killer inspired by AC/DC’s Highway To Hell. Welcome to DISGRACELAND, where these stories and more will grip you to the edge of your seat and cause you to binge episode after episode.
DISGRACELAND publishes new, fully scripted, and sound-designed episodes every Tuesday and bonus episodes featuring listener voicemails, texts, and emails on Thursdays.
DISGRACELAND is not a journalistic podcast. It is an entertainment podcast inspired by true events. Certain dialogue and scenes are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes, as they are in most scripted entertainment based on true events. Sources and credits for each episode are available at www.disgracelandpod.com .
To listen to DISGRACELAND ad-free and get access to an exclusive monthly episode, weekly bonus content, and more, become a Disgraceland All Access member at www.disgracelandpod.com/membership.
276
Joe Exotic: Tiger King, Budding Country Star, C...
Joe Exotic, the gun toting, mullet wearing, polyamorous subject of the hit Netflix series, Tiger King was more than just a murder-minded conman. He could sing! You saw those videos. We did too. As a singer, Joe’s voice belied the tortured Everyman experience of some of the best country music crooners, hinting at deep trauma resulting from unspeakable loss, assault and violence. Most of which was for the most part, left on the cutting room floor of the popular Netflix series and is on display in this special Covid-19 bonus content episode of Disgraceland.
36 min
277
John Denver: A Folk Singer, a Sniper and Americ...
54 min
278
Little Richard: Sex and the Duality of the King...
Little Richard is the originator. Without him it’s hard to imagine the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Elton John or even Led Zeppelin. He blazed a trail through popular culture that previous to him did not exist. His music was completely original for the time, the essence of rock ‘n’ roll, filled with impassioned energy, fueled at times by large quantities of drugs and always brimming with sex. The sex, the drugs, and the party for Little Richard, it was as endless as the manic energy that drove his music and it all nearly derailed him––several times––landing him behind bars and on the wrong side of the gun.
39 min
279
Jay Z: Street hustle, a Nightclub Stabbing, a N...
44 min
280
Guns N’ Roses Pt. 2: Real life Rocket Queen, Ra...
38 min
281
Guns N’ Roses Pt. 1: Brawling with Bowie, Juven...
37 min
282
The Beach Boys Pt. 2: Endless Bummer, Hollywood...
38 min
283
The Beach Boys Pt. 1: Endless Summer, LSD, Orgi...
41 min
284
The Rolling Stones at Altamont: Bikers, Blood, ...
The Rolling Stones, the most dangerous band on the planet, envisioned their free concert at the Altamont speedway outside San Francisco as the triumphant capstone to their 1969 tour: a west coast Woodstock, and a celebration of free love and hippiedom. But the festival, thrown together in under seventy two hours and with security managed by Hell’s Angels paid in beer, was fated for a tragic and violent end... just like the ‘60s themselves.
43 min
285
A$AP Rocky: Love Sex Dreams/LSD and Locked Up O...
A$AP Rocky’s upbringing; Harlem, Riker’s, and his own instincts and sense of history informed his world view: A view that included not only a healthy respect for the healing powers of LSD, but also a healthy distaste for the political maelstrom surrounding cartoon president Donald J. Trump. The irony is that A$AP Rocky’s own behavior led him straight into the political fray—jailed in an international incident and, in the end, in need of the unlikeliest of political allies to help him escape.
45 min
286
Whitney Houston: Cracks in the Mirror, Crack o...
Whitney Houston was The Voice. A stunning beauty. An early MTV star and leading actress. But when she passed away in a hotel suite bath, the music industry gala downstairs that she was supposed to attend went on without her. How did it all come to this? The drugs and her husband Bobby Brown weren’t answers, just ways to avoid the question: what was the private tragedy of Whitney Houston?
33 min
287
Eminem: Taking His Shot, Pulling a Glock, and F...
On a single Saturday in 2000, Marshall Mathers assaulted two separate men with a pistol and fought with his wife outside a nightclub, resulting in lawsuits and charges that hung over the completion of his original trilogy of albums. For that one day, the rap persona Slim Shady had escaped into the real world. How had Slim Shady come to be, and why had he gotten out?
32 min
288
Madonna: Music as Sex and Sex as Power in the R...
Madonna always knew her life would be art. She rose through the late 70s New York scene reinventing pop iconography and feminism alike. But whether it was Toronto police threatening her for indecency, her short-fuse husband, Hollywood bros exploiting her charisma, or far worse, Madonna learned quick: the world doesn’t know what to do with a truly free woman.
38 min
289
Iggy Pop: Mad Artistry, Mental Wards, and Gapin...
Iggy Pop pushed rock further than anyone before him, committing to live acts of sex, sickness, and rumored suicide on stage. From his cocaine fueled bromance with David Bowie, to his search for inspiration in the voodoo rituals of Haiti, Iggy Pop never just crossed the line between art and madness. He bled all over it, and danced on the stains.
37 min
290
Motown Records: Pimps, Prostitutes, the Detroit...
Motown Records is one of the most successful musical industry endeavors or all time. The music and the megastars Motown produced; Smokey Robinson, Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5 defined a generation. But that success is marred by rumors. Rumors that the record label and its innovative owner were controlled by the quote unquote black hand of the white American mob.
38 min
291
Led Zeppelin: Dark Power, Cocaine, Backstage Br...
Led Zeppelin were the biggest band on the planet. The great white shark of the seventies. They defined excess. The designed the avatar for the heavy metal rock star; themselves. Along the way there were violent brawls, car crashes, lots of cocaine, alcohol, satanic sexual rituals and a very freaked out David Bowie.
42 min
292
N.W.A Pt. 2: Beatdowns, Band Beef, Death Row an...
36 min
293
N.W.A Pt. 1: Street Hustle, Reality Rap and Cul...
38 min
294
Frank Sinatra: Frankie Is the Reason...That the...
Frank Sinatra had it all. Then lost it all. Then got it all back tenfold. He was a man of extreme talent, confidence and insecurity. And he had powerful and dangerous friends. He orchestrated some of the greatest music ever made. And he also orchestrated an alliance between two friends—mob boss Sam Giancana and John F. Kennedy—that would help the latter win the White House and, in the end, prove disastrous for Frank and the country.
28 min
295
The Rolling Stones: Fugitives in Exile
Gun fights, heroin trafficking, burglaries, kidnapping threats, intra-band infidelity and the greatest rock ‘n’ roll record ever made, Exile on Main St. The Rolling Stones created this album as fugitives––tax fugitives––exiled from their homeland to the French Riviera and desperate to keep their career afloat after a near decade of scandal and near financial ruin amidst a cast of colorful characters including Gram Parsons, Anita Pallenberg, starlets, aristocrats, drug dealers, junkies and thieves. All of the chaos contributed to one of Keith Richards’ and Mick Jagger’s finest creative achievements, a wholly new and unique interpretation of America.
33 min
296
Cardi B: Felony Assault
30 min
297
Jim Morrison: Zodiac Killer Qu'est-ce Que C'est
This is a bonus episode of Disgraceland that is satire and not true crime. Originally released on April 1, 2019 as an April Fools joke, this episode fooled many. However, it was quickly taken off the Internet. The joke worked too well for some. After editing the episode lightly to protect the identity of the victims, here is the episode as it originally appeared in its entirety along with the original episode description below: A special emergency episode of Disgraceland that hopes to contextualize today’s fast developing story about America’s most mysterious serial killer and his relationship to one of the most infamous musicians of all time. Warning; this story is currently breaking. Information is coming in fast and furious. The episode will be updated periodically throughout the day to reflect new info as we get it.
38 min
298
Slick Rick: Hustle, Iconic Flow and a Menacing ...
Slick Rick has one of the most iconic voices in hip hip history. His style is completely his own, and his success owes as much to his delivery as it does to his hustle. Slick Rick worked hard to get to the top, and once he made it he was nearly cut down by drugs and violence - violence inflicted upon him by someone from his inner circle. Listen to hear how Slick Rick fought back and continued his flow.
35 min
299
Johnny Cash: Pills & Playing With Fire
Johnny Cash took no shit. Was a total original. Could maneuver that big baritone around a ballad or a rave up like nobody’s business. He also burned down a national forest, crashed cars, overdosed, was arrested for drug trafficking, and was obsessed with June Carter. Their love affair is one for the ages. Through it all, Johnny maintained his sense of empathy and his big heart. His story is unlike any other. Listen to Disgraceland to hear how Johnny Cash played with fire both figuratively and literally.
31 min
300
Amy Winehouse: Rehab, the Muse and a Rare Talent
Rehab, arrests, fights, hitting on Prince Harry, dramatic stage breakdowns, slagging off the press, Amy Winehouse was a rockstar’s rockstar and she was also one of the greatest musical talents of the past 20 years. Her voice was unlike any other. She modernized jazz. She gave weight to pop. When she was inspired, she was untouchable. Driven by her muse, haunted by her addictions, and harassed endlessly by the paparazzi, Amy Winehouse’s story is tragic and all too familiar, but her music and the way she expressed herself was entirely unique.
40 min