10 Musicians Who Survived Assassination Attempts
2. Bob Marley
The man who sang that he “Shot the Sheriff” was almost a victim of gun crime himself.
It’s an astonishing attempted mass murder driven by political ideology.
In 1976 Bob Marley & The Wailers were due to play the Smile Jamaica Peace Concert, which was seen by some as an endorsement by the reggae act for the ruling PNP political party before an election. Two days before the concert, seven armed men raided Marley’s house while he and the band were on a break from rehearsals.
Marley’s wife was shot in the head, Marley’s manager in the legs, another band employee in the torso, and Marley himself shot in the arm and chest. And somehow nobody died.
The attack is heavily suspected to have been carried out by supporters of the Edward Seaga’s opposition political party the JLP. Other, slightly wilder, theories involve the CIA having hired them in exchange for cocaine and guns...