This is all just perception bias. There are thousands and thousands of people in rock. The handful that are assholes you hear stories about, the rest would just be averagely decent people who behave in ordinary ways and so don’t come up on the radar. Further, a person in rock could be averagely decent (hell, they could be above averagely decent) but if they have one bad day and throw a tantrum, that day will provide the anecdote given as the standard illustration of that person’s personality, for the rest of that person’s life.
Michael Jackson diddled little boys.
Yeah? Name two. Michael Jackson attracted shakedown artists.
Huh. Checked the link before I posted. Ah well, just Google “Jackson Browne the non incident”.
Here’s the fixed version of the link: http://home.comcast.net/~leslienoelani/TNI.html
That may be, but my wife reports that at a Foo Fighters concert she got a look at a backstage pass, and it said explicitly (not even just using innuendo) that a woman with a backstage pass was thereby agreeing to give head to the band members.
Probably some kind of joke (I hope) but still…
A joke. For similar dry humor, see the Foo Fighters rider.
I know absolutely nothing about Shania Twain, but how would that even work?
“I saw him looking at me!!!” “I am not going on stage if he isn’t fired immediately!!!”
It just sounds impossible to believe that it is something actually possible to enforce…
Was Shania Twain the one who’s husband was caught fucking her best friend, and then after she kicked him out, she ended up getting with her (now ex-) best friend’s (now ex-) husband?
If so, I saw her on an interview for a few minutes recently, where she was shilling a book that she wrote about the situation, and from what I recall, she seemed fairly normal, other than the whole whoring out her Tragic Betrayal for public consumption…
john fogerty
A friend of mine was on the stage crew when he did a concert in my town. He screwed up some licks during a performance. Steps behind the amps, trashes the guitar and gets another one. Steps out on stage and continues playing like nothing happened.
At the rock n roll hall of fame he refused to play with ccr even for a few minutes. he’s had several other known dick moments.
Not unheard of in acting. Tales are told about actors who crew members were told not to look at. Wish I could recall names now.
Wouldn’t be the dude who played Batman, would it? 
Both Barbra Streisand and Neil Diamond have this note in their riders as well. For Barbra it’s back stage crew and everyone just clears out of whatever space she’s walking through on her way to the stage. With Neil Diamond front of stage crew are required to face away from the stage-no peeking.
I hope my post wasn’t vague and implied the wrong thing. It sounded like the Morrissey incident had happened years prior, though after she had become a well-enough-known artist, and they were both at some appropriate venue for her to approach him. She just related the story of how rude he was as an intro to the other song
Jerry Lewis was the star of a family anecdote: My father was a rep in Chicago for an entertainers union - AGVA The Associated Guild of Variety Artists (think plate spinners on the Ed Sullivan Show). Jerry came into town to perform at a night club, and was insistent that my dad procure him a girl for the evening. My father very clearly explained that “pimp” was not part of his job description and that Jerry could get his own girls. This story was repeated every Labor Day when the MDA telethon came on.
Jerry Lewis is a washed up actor/comedian, and is the guy on the telethon.
Jerry Lee Lewis is a Louisiana piano player who infamously married his 13 year-old cousin, and then would delight in beating her to a bloody pulp on a semi-regular basis.
Apparently, neither one of them are great human beings.
A SDMB primer on differentiating between Messers Lewis and Lewis.
I met Dion once. After two minutes I wanted to punch him in the face.
The provision was there mainly for any local venue staff who may have been acting a tad starstruck and staring openly at her. Rap artists are pretty sensitive to it as well. One of my coworkers was given a dressing down for making eye contact with 50 Cent. If someone had been caught gawping at “Ms. Twain” (as her rider called her), they would have been spoken to in similar fashion. Some artists go so far as to have hallways cleared out for their imminent arrival at the venue, but that’s rare. Most don’t really care as long as the local crew don’t bug them for pics or autographs. And then there’s a couple of people like Steven Tyler and Jimmy Buffet who love to be approached. Buffet has a guy who helps keep the madness down somewhat. Otherwise he’d spend all his time shooting the breeze with everyone!
Backstage, it’s the artist’s world and we’re all just living in it. It’s one of the few places where they can control the flow of human traffic and try to limit, within reason, contact between them and the public. While I feel that prohibiting people from looking too long in their direction is total diva behavior, I can also see what they’re trying to do. It’s something that you have to accept if you want to work in that environment.
Actually they are dark wizards who cast spells that make you buy their music when you look at them, and it only lasts for so long. So if the people in the back are staring at them, it lessens or weakens the magic before they get on-stage.
Or so I’ve been told. 