10 Craziest Musical Urban Legends

The Strange, Weird, and What The Hell? Of Music.

By Tim Coffman /

Most of the tabloid circus surrounding rock music can feel like a bunch of BS at the end of the day. For as much as people like to brag about their extravagant lifestyle, it's ultimately no one's business as to what they do when they're off the stage. Every so often though, you get that one little tidbit that seems almost too good (or bad) to be true.

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From every stripe of music history, there have been certain stories surrounding music legends that have followed them around for years.

Instead of just fading like your usual stories, these have hung in the back of everyone's collective memory for so long that they feel like their true through sheer force of will alone. However, what do the people who actually live them have to say?

If you just tend to believe the usual music magazines, you're missing the full stories behind your favorite bands. While some parts might get a bit dicey, these rumors have hung around long enough to go down in history.

Across each of these cases, we'll see the too good to be true and the downright creepy things that went down after the stage lights went out. But hey, any publicity is good publicity, right?

10. Michael Jackson and the Elephant Man

Michael Jackson has always had a bit of a weird streak ever since becoming a solo star. Granted, it's not like you're expected to grow up amid the tabloid circus and not run into some weird detours along the way. Despite some of the more eccentric sides of Jacko's personality, the craziest has to be when he went back to the vaudeville stage.

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While at the height of his popularity in the late '80s, Jackson became transfixed on the character of the Joseph Merrick, who was known as The Elephant Man decades before. Unlike most other performers, the Elephant Man's bones were completely warped, leaving different remnants of bone sticking out from his facial structure. Though he was able to win over the attention of circus goers back in the day, it turns out that same kind of deformity was actually profitable after his death.

As has been commonly believed over the years, Jackson actually bought the bones of the Elephant Man, after being displayed in a museum ever since his death. Going for the hefty price of $1 million dollars, Jackson ended up becoming the owner for what he cited as a fascination with the ethical nature of Merrick's work. Aside from your regular celebrity vanity projects, this takes the extravagance of stardom to an entirely different level.

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