Random Rock N' Roll Groupies Reveal What Lifestyle Is Really Lik (14 items)

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  (#5) Groupies Had Front Row Seats To Music History

  Chris O'Dell's role as both a personal assistant and a close friend of rock legends like The Beatles meant she was present for some of the most important moments in rock history. She witnessed the moment when George Harrison confessed to Ringo Starr that he was in love with Ringo's wife. As O'Dell tells it:

  When George finally told Ringo that he was in love with Maureen, Ringo's response was, "Well, better you than someone else." And you know, I think that sort of ... it's like OK at least it's not somebody that we don't know.[...] It's all in the family. And I think that's kind of the way it was at that point.

  She even got to see the Beatles' last performance together on the rooftop of Apple Records from a seat next to Yoko Ono and Maureen Starkey. As she described the legendary music moment:

  It was freezing cold. I mean that I remember more than anything - how cold it was up there. But also, it was just so exciting to think originally the idea was that they were doing it so that everybody in the whole West End of London could hear the music, and in fact, the amps weren't that big. So, the people on Saville Row could hear it, and it was fun to watch them looking up trying to figure out what was that?
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  (#8) It Wasn't Always A Party Around The Bands

  Being around famous rock stars wasn't always pleasant. According to Chris O'Dell, many of the musicians she knew during her time as a personal assistant and tour manager were less than kind to one another and the various people who hung around backstage.

  Eric Clapton, in particular, was a tough hang when sober, and O'Dell said he struck her as "very lonely and very empty." She had even more insight into the Fab Four: 

  I think there was [a nasty side] to all four of them. Some of it was that Liverpool way, that sarcasm, and part of it was that they discovered that they could say anything they damn well wanted and they could get away with it. And people didn't know how to respond.
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  (#14) Some Groupies See Modern Celebrity Culture As An Evolution Of The Groupie Lifestyle

  Lori Mattix was considered a "baby groupie," one of the younger girls in the music scene of the '60s and '70s. Even though she was still in high school at the time, she slept with rock stars like Jimmy Page and Mick Jagger, and lost her virginity to David Bowie at 14.

  She told Thrillist that even though those relationships are considered profoundly problematic today, she sees them as a direct parallel to modern celebrity culture: 

  You need to understand that I didn’t think of myself as underage. I was a model. I was in love. That time of my life was so much fun. It was a period in which everything seemed possible. There was no AIDS, and the potential consequences seemed to be light. Nobody was afraid of winding up on YouTube or TMZ. Now people are terrified. You can’t even walk out your door without being photographed. It has become a different world.

  But, I should add, things haven’t really changed. Look at the Kylie and Kendall Jenners, the Gigi Hadids. They are the modern-day versions of teenage groupies. The only difference is that the Internet blows them up in a way that allows them to make a fortune. And then there’s Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton, and all those kids who were f*cking partying at 15. It is just a different era. It has evolved into something else. 
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  (#3) The Line Between Employee And Groupie Was Hazy

  Even though some point to her as the epitome of a groupie, Chris O'Dell doesn't like to call herself one. She considered herself an integral part of the music business. In 1968, the Beatles' press agent Derek Taylor invited her to move from Los Angeles to London for a job working at the Apple headquarters. She told ABC News in 2009:

  I needed to do something different, and I loved music. But it was totally by accident that I ended up working at a record company and met Derek Taylor, who was The Beatles' press agent. [He] was going back to London at Apple, and we became friends, and he said "Why don't you come over?"[...] Paul came in, and I could hear his voice through a wall, and it was like "Oh my gosh." I walked out of the door, and there were John and Yoko sitting there, and it was the most fabulous day because they went from being like these magazine photos and these people I'd seen on TV to being real live people.

  She quickly moved up the ranks at Apple from cutting out newspaper clippings about the band every morning to becoming George Harrison's personal assistant. From there, she became a confidant, manager, and sometimes sexual partner to some of the biggest names in rock music. And while she might not think of herself as a groupie, that's not meant to disrespect others.

  She told ABC News, "I don't want to use [groupie] in a derogatory way because I think those girls, the majority of them, were really very strong fans, which I was, but also I worked, and I worked really hard, and I became a friend."
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  (#7) On At Least One Occasion, A Groupie Got To Rescue A Rockstar

  Bebe Buell, Liv Tyler's mother, hooked up with Steven Tyler when he called her from a hotel, unable to get himself out. They were already friends, so Buell was happy to help him out. According to Buell:

  [Steven Tyler] was in New York for some basketball game, and I was at my friend Liz Derringer’s apartment. She was married to Rick Derringer, and I used to sleep there when Todd [Rundgren] was on the road. At 3 o’clock in the morning, Steven calls and says, “Bebe, come get me. I’m at the Pierre hotel, and I can’t walk. And I’m the only white person in the room.” I said, “You can handle that.” He said, “No, you don’t understand, they can do a lot more drugs than I can.” So I went up there, knocked on the door, and it was a room full of seven-foot-tall men. Steven really could not walk, and I had just taken this fireman training class, because Todd was worried if we ever had a fire how I would get out of our townhouse. I threw Steven over my shoulder and took him to Liz’s, and we threw him in the bathtub. Finally, he woke up and Liz said, 'go sleep in our room.' I always joke that I think my daughter was conceived in Liz and Rick’s bed.
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  (#12) Misogyny And Double-Standards Ruled The Music Scene

  The word groupie itself is a loaded term; it implies that women who hung around bands were doing it for sexual attention and proximity to fame rather than for love of the music. Women like Chris O'Dell and Pamela Des Barres participated in the same activities as the men hailed as musical heroes, but were dismissed as hangers-on rather than peers.

  O'Dell believes that some of it stemmed from innate misogyny:

  There was definitely a misogynistic attitude. Look at their women - so afraid of other women because they thought they were going to take their man away. The feminist movement hadn't hit then. I don't think that women today would put up with it.

  Many women from the music scene object to that label because of the baggage it carries. As Bebe Buell said in an interview:

  I get really angry at people who just dismiss these girls as whores or groupies or crappy labels they want to throw at them. They were more than that. They were darling, sweet girls that would greet you at the airport with flowers and invite you to all of these wonderful things... Forget it, you would have a blast. They were just really nice girls. They were not mean girls. I've had anger toward some of the things they've done when they were kids, but I was a kid, too, so I can't judge people.

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