Nancy Spungen

It wasn’t as if it was a dysfunctional family, as apart from Nancy the family appeared to be fine and did their best to live with her. For Nancy her state of mind was frightening and she often confided to her mother ‘that she wanted to die.’ She suffered from depression and committed self harm. It can’t have helped being put into various hospitals and correctional facilities without success.

Aged 17, Nancy left home and moved to New York and found a place where other damaged kids and behavioural problems could be accepted as fairly normal – the rock ‘n’ roll scene and she moved in the same circles as Aerosmith, The New York Dolls, Ramones, Debbie Harry and the Heartbreakers as a groupie. Like so many others, she entered the drug culture and needing money to survive, worked as a stripper and sometime prostitute to get by.

Nancy Spungen: I was concentrating on big rock n roll stars…I toured around with Aerosmith for a while. One of the first nights I was with them …we drove out in the limousine. I was sitting in the backseat with Tom Hamilton on one side of me and Brad Whitfield on the other. I had one hand on one prick and one hand on the other…I had a good time and I got treated nice…I know everybody… a lot of my really good friends are in the top bands. Please Kill Me

Nancy Spungen: I slept with David Johansen, I slept with Johnny Thunders, I slept with Syl Sylvain, I slept with Jerry Nolan. Please Kill Me

Iggy Pop: I spent the night with her once. She wasn’t a beauty, but I liked her. There was something really spunky there, But I was a big boy by then. So my thought was, Trouble. Please Kill Me

Richard Hell (who she had an affair with) in Jon Savage’s book ‘England’s Dreaming’ describes her as a girl ‘with exceptionally large drive to be where the action was’. For Nancy that place was rock ‘n’ roll and rock stars. Sex and drugs were her ticket in and the ones which she could use to both manipulate and to feel needed.

Above – Nancy with Iggy & Bowie, Nancy & The Dolls & below Nancy with Debbie Harry

Having a crush on Jerry Nolan, she followed The Heartbreakers over to the UK when they moved and quickly entered the UK Punk scene. When Jerry wanted nothing to do with her, she seemed determined to ‘bag’ a punk celebrity and when Johnny Rotten again wanted nothing to do with her she met Sid and set in motion a chain of tragic events.

Nancy Spungen: I slept in the same bed as John for two nights and he said to me ‘You want it but you’re not going to get it’. Don’t you think it means that he just wanted to get into my pants? Record Mirror 8.4.78

Instead Nancy got Sid and between them a mutual interdependence on sex, drugs, violence, fame (infamy) and dare I say it love.

Sid wasn’t the greatest bass player (sic) but he looked the part. But as the Pistols began to slowly disintegrate Nancy began to inflate Sid’s ego that he was the star of the band and who was holding it all together and in their heroin hazed existence that was probably their reality and what each other wanted to hear.

Sid Vicious I’ve been doing every-fuckin’-thing they reckon she turned me onto two years before I met ‘er. NME 17.12.77

The perception that she was a malign influence on Sid and the band even caused McLaren to bizarrely attempt to kidnap her and offer a one way ticket back to the States without Sid which she refused and then pointed out that Sid would kick shit out of them if she went.

And what a love affair. Like a lot of young men Sid at first was unsure even about his sexuality.

Wayne County: Sid Vicious followed Johnny and Leee around like a puppy dog. Leee even managed Sid’s band the Flowers Of Romance for a short period! Sid was extremely paranoid about being ‘possibly’ gay. Leee and Johnny would give him ‘pep’ talks to give him more confidence. Sid even approached me at a gig, asking me if I thought he was gay! Very strange! I didn’t know if he was taking the piss, was coming on to me, or was being dead serious! I do know he had a lot of misgivings about his sexuality. And of course, Nancy zeroed in on all that and used it to her advantage! I actually liked Nancy to a degree.

Nancy Spungen: On the first night  we screwed, me and Sid. He had smelly feet and he wet the bed…I’ve taught him everything he needs to know…I’ve put that sexual aura into Sid. Record Mirror 8.4.78  

Nancy gave him the sex and he gave her the rock star. That may have turned into a more deeper relationship but the drugs would only increase the dependence on each other and each would send the other into oblivion.

Johnny Rotten: They were so broke, they were looking out their window which overlooked a garage. there was a black mechanic working down there, and Nancy went down and gave him a blowjob for fifteen quid. Sid thought it was marvellous because he got to watch. What a couple. Rotten – John Lydon

There certainly seemed to be a sadistic/masochistic element to their relationship that gave it added thrills. It was Nancy that goaded Sid to acts of violence on others and herself and like it or not made it impossible for both of them to get off heroin and it was these acts of violence that gave Sid publicity that fed the myth and made them celebrities.

Sid Vicious I got in a fight at the Speakeasy but I got my hand in his mouth and ripped it open while Nancy kicked him in the balls. And then at the Roxy some kids jumped on me and they got me on the floor and kicked me. Nancy stepped on their balls. RM 8.4.78

While in the beginning, everything may have seemed ok as the months went by the deterioration set in.

As the Sex Pistols hit America Sid Vicious was a full time junkie, rock god and crap bass player. Nancy was banned from going on tour but was amused by her boyfriend’s sexual hi-jinks including a liaison with a transsexual while on tour.

Wayne County: He even picked up a tranny on the road who looked like Nancy! He actually called Nancy on the phone while in bed with the tranny!!! The conversation went something like this. Sid ‘Hey Nancy I picked up a transvestite and she looks exactly like you’. Nancy ‘ Does she have tits?’  Sid ‘Yes, she’s got great tits!’  Nancy ‘Well, she’s not a transvestite, she’s a transsexual!!!’ Punk77 Interview

The US tour was a disaster and the band split up leaving Sid and Nancy on their own. How was the mighty Sid? Well an interview in the film ‘DOA’ gives an indication of his state of mind – shot -and how Nancy was looking after him. Rotten in his autobiography recounts how Nancy proposed a new band with Sid ‘the star’ on vocals and Rotten on drums.

Following the Sex Pistols break up, Sid and Nancy played as the Vicious White Kids at the Electric Ballroom to raise money to move over to the US and move they did ensconcing themselves in the Chelsea Hotel. If they thought this was a new beginning in a new welcoming land they were soon put right. Vicious as per his name got into just as many fights, they were short of cash and both were strung out.

Nancy had by now set herself up as Sid’s manager and Sid played a few gigs at Max’s etc to get some money. Just before her death Nancy had rung her mum complain about kidney pains and revealing that her stories of being beaten up by Teddy Boys was in fact Sid beating her. A relationship like theirs wasn’t ordinary so read into Nancy’s statement what you will.

Vicious attempted to throw himself out of the third storey window, an attempted suicide that would have succeeded had not his girlfriend been able to grab Sid’s belt…and drag him back inside…Once inside, Vicious, in yet another fit, grabbed Spungen’s blonde hair and drove her head against the wall relentlessly again and again until he finally stopped just as she was about to loose unconsciousness, blood from her scalp running down the wall…the pair finally collapsed into bed at 5 a.m in the morning. NME, 17.12.77

The photo above is a depressing portrayal of the end of her journey. A sordid and public end, robbed of all dignity and history and quotes since haven’t changed that view as of course like Sid she’s unable to defend herself.

In the Record Mirror of April 8th 1978 Nancy said:

I’ll kill myself as soon as the first wrinkle appears… I don’t want to lose my looks.

Nancy Spungen was born kicking and screaming. In death she achieved peace as her mother recounts in her book.

The pain was missing from her face. She had no more pain. Without it, she almost looked like a different person. She wasn’t angry anymore.

Like or love loath Nancy, hers was a tragic story and as deserving of a place in rock ‘n’ roll myth as any. But if she’s your role model then caveat emptor!

The myth and legend moves on, as films and series portray her and Sid’s life, because people are constantly fascinated by, and rediscover, their story.

Above Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker reprise Sid & Nancy
Below – Disney’s 2022 ‘Pistol’ series from Steve Jones’s autobiography

Classic Sid & Nancy as the myth demands!

Nancy Spungen was a disturbed child from birth to death. This 19 year old Philadelphian runaway became a well known groupie/addict shagging Aerosmith Bad Company and mingled on the New York Scene with Iggy, Ramones and all the other usual suspects before following the Heartbreakers to the UK for the December Anarchy tour in 1976.

Nancy was a peroxide blonde junkie with a nauseating attitude and a freeloader to boot. Basically she was looking for someone to give her status among her supposed peers. She soon wormed her way (via the Heartbreakers) into the Pistols crowd and tried it first on with Johnny Rotten who was having none of it. She then settled for second best and fucked Sid Vicious in mind and soul thus sealing both their untimely deaths.

The quotes below from the time she was alive till now are a pretty common view of her that has stuck. Some of them are pretty horrific.

Jayne County: She was a groupie around the rock scene…She’d sleep with anyone who was in a band. Nobody liked her in New York, and they hated her in London  because of the way she latched onto Sid. She had a very childish quality; you felt sorry for her, but you could tell she was trouble. a ‘must to avoid’. Man Enough To Be A Woman

Malcolm McLaren: When Nancy Spungen came into my shop it was as if Dr Strangelove had sent us this dreaded disease specifically to England, and specifically to my store….But I tried every way possible to either get her run over, poisoned, kidnapped, or shipped back to New York. Please Kill Me

Cheetah Chrome (Dead Boys): And fucking Nancy, if someone you knew was selling dope, she’d sneak off and try and buy up all the dope, before you got there. ..Fucking Nancy. If Sid hadn’t killed her, I woulda, ha ha ha. Nancy was probably the most miserable person I’ve ever met in my life. Please Kill Me

Leee Black Childers: If the Heartbreakers brought heroin to England, then Nancy brought it to Sid. When the Heartbreakers were around., he wasn’t interested. Suddenly when Nancy came, bang. That was the power of love. Her world was smack….she was a total junkie prostitute. That doesn’t mean I didn’t like her, I liked her fine. Please Kill Me

Chrissie Hynde: Nancy was an opportunist. I’m not even going to say whether I liked her of not, but she had a negative effect on Sid and he didn’t need that.. No Blacks, No Dogs No Irish

Johnny Rotten: There’s nothing vindictive when I say she was a beast. She was a very self-destructive human being who was determined to take as many people down with her as possible. Nancy Spungen was the complete Titanic looking for the iceberg, and she wanted a full load. No Blacks, No Dogs No Irish

Nora: She was so utterly fucked up and evil…I was absolutely convinced that girl was on a slow suicide mission, as I believe most heroin addicts are. Only she didn’t want to go alone. She wanted to take Sid with her. No Blacks, No Dogs No Irish

Bob Gruen: She was whiny and not very good looking, and that made her easy to dislike.

Chrissie Hynde: To tell you the truth, at that time it wouldn’t have surprised me if he or anyone killed her, she was that obnoxious. When she started up with that incessant whining she was more than the human mind could bear. No Blacks, No Dogs No Irish

Marco Pirroni: …Nancy, the vilest person I’ve ever met. Looking back she must’ve been mentally retarded. She loved Sid to be the cartoon punk monster the papers said he was. The more Sid he became the more she loved him and looked up to him and the bigger he felt. It was a vicious (ha!) circle and we mustn’t forget the drugs. They’re very important in all this. Punk77 Interview

Burchill & Parsons: The root of all the bands (Sex Pistols) evil was an American dancer Nancy Spungen, girlfriend of Sid Vicious, who persuaded the bassist that Rotten’s wise decision not to go out without his entourage and bodyguard was nothing more than acute, unjustified paranoia. The Boy Looked At Johnny

Marco Pirroni: I don’t know that she deserved to be stabbed to death. I’m pleased that she was stabbed to death, we all had a good laugh about it. Looking back, you think “that fucking woman!” There was something wrong with her, she wasn’t all there. It wasn’t just that she was fantastically stupid. Punk77 Interview

What do you think?

Ms Dayglo writes…Last year I wrote an angry defence in response to what I described as “the demonisation of Nancy Spungen”, the “quaintly medieval” misogyny that cast her as deserving her violent death.

Was Sid a boy scout/pillar of the community, with a brilliant future ahead, before he met Nancy? Did she force him to take drugs?

And of course, who ended up stabbed to death? We don’t know what happened there; but I do know that Sid was out on the pull a short time afterwards. Lads, eh!

I particularly like the account that says she died because she “failed to dress the wound properly”. Well, it’s clearly her fault then! Because any decent woman knows how to dress a wound!

It’s a tough one, because by all accounts, she was difficult and damaged.  People whose opinions I respect, who knew her better than I, don’t have a good word to say about her.  And yet, and yet … I met her briefly, and she was sweet to me, and I liked her. She seemed solicitous and tender towards Sid.  Surely everyone deserves a flower on their grave?

Her mother’s book tells the story that Nancy was a twisted, damaged personality from Day One; a difficult baby, an aggressive toddler.  Do we believe that people are like this, that we are born with good or evil personalities and predispositions, and our environment or parenting have little effect?  

I wonder about her mother’s story.  The book focuses on major incidents, but what was happening in between?  Did she really seek help, but could not get it from anyone? Of course it was a different time, when so many disorders went undiagnosed, but how interesting it would be to hear Nancy’s side of things. It is hard to believe that she turned out damaged all by herself, and I wonder if her mother is trying to rationalize assuage her own guilt, or grief even. 

Some of the most callous dismissals are from nice people, or those with no reason to lie.   Marco Pirroni says “the question isn’t “why did he kill her”, it’s “why didn’t he kill her sooner?” ”Joe Corre (Vivienne Westwood’s son) says that Nancy stuck her stiletto in his head when he was nine, while he remembers Sid buying him sweets.  Is this true?  Is his memory tainted by the myth? 

Another story about her giving blowjobs for heroin while Sid looks on – isn’t this a story that reflects on all three participants, rather than just on her?  It’s quite a common dominant-male fantasy, although not as readily boasted about as others, to have your girlfriend being “used” by a man.  I’m not saying that Nancy was pushed into it, just that it was hardly the act of gross betrayal that is implied.

What did people hate so about Nancy?  Was it that she led Sid astray?  Is it the “Yoko” syndrome?  The whore/Madonna standard seems nowhere more applied than to the traditional rock’n’roll consort: anonymous groupie or uncomplaining, supportive wife. Or is she hated for being weak and damaged?

People talk about her “whining and clinging” with such disgust, as those these were the worst crimes you could commit.  It’s behaviour that make you “low-status”, behaviour that men despise most in women, and that makes me wonder if there isn’t a bit of projection going on there – we hate people because they show us our own weaknesses. 

I am uneasy about the mob mentality that makes Nancy our victim, I am unhappy because I liked her and to crow over her death demeans us all. She was a human being that was capable of giving and receiving love as well as pain.  What a fucked-up life, and what a sad, lonely death.

Ms Dayglo August 2007

The site received a number of emails and these are pretty typical.

Sent: 18 April 2004 07:12   Subject: (no subject)

I feel people didn’t know the real her and just assumed that she was a junkie/slut/whore. Nancy had a very troubled birth and at an early age she developed schizophrenia. She was an angry and troubled young child and also had a very hard youth. She followed in with the wrong crowd and then started taking drugs. The doctors said the drugs would have a greater effect and make her schizophrenia worse. She then got more paranoid in her teens. She would always go to shows and would feel that would make her happy and make her troubles go away. She then would follow the bands around and eventually become a groupie.

Nancy had an abortion at the age of 13. She was then introduced to heroin at the age of 16 from her friends. That made her schizophrenia worse. At the age of 17 she moved into her own apartment in New York. After making friends and connections she became a go-go dancer for the cash. She then followed the New York Dolls to London, and as every punk fan knows she met up with the Sex Pistols and became Sid’s girlfriend.

She originally wanted to be with Johnny Rotten but he was disgusted by her and he actually introduced Nancy to Sid Vicious. We all know it went downhill from there with the heroin and all. But Nancy did not introduce drugs to Sid. He had been doing drugs long before he met Nancy. Its not so much that their relationship was destroyed, it was the drugs. Sid and Nancy loved each-other very much and wanted to be together forever and get off of heroin. Unfortunately the heroin is what killed them both. Sid did not kill Nancy in my opinion.

Her death is still a mystery today. But Sid and Nancy had a death pact together and Sid didn’t do it in enough time. I think Nancy stabbed herself first and was waiting for Sid to do it but he was scared. Or, there had been many drug dealers in the hotel that night and 1 of them had a grudge against Nancy, and I guess she owed him money and didn’t pay. In every punks heart, we all know Sid and Nancy loved each-other very much and wanted to die together.

---

Sent: 25 and 30 July 2004 03:23 Subject: Nancy Spungen!!!!

You have all these awful things to say about Nancy when really all she wanted to do is be close to the music, whereas Sid really didn’t give a fuck about music and had no interest in it period, really. It was basically a punk Backstreet Boys, since they all were managed and put together and were TOLD how to act. At least Nancy was true in her own sense.

Nancy. A girl who had been fighting for her life since birth, became a punk queen. Though misunderstood, Nancy was a beautiful spirit that struggled to come out due to a sickness that prevented that from happening, which in result projected an awful portrayal of who she was.

All Nancy could ever find peace within herself was through music, and she so badly wanted to be as close to it as possible. First she found it in musicals like Hair, and then it ended in punk with the Sex Pistols, which in my opinion is where she belonged, since her attitude had been punk, so to say, before it was even created.

Some may call Nancy a groupie, but she was true in her own skin, even though she had been trying to get out of that skin since she could remember, which finally happened October 12th 1978, when, possibly by her own request, was stabbed to death in room 100 in the Chelsea hotel in New York City. Nancy…may you rest in peace.  Breyanna