Quick Links

There’s not really a recipe for being a world famous rock star, but it appears that a liberal dose of alcohol would be a part of it if we're going to create a cookbook to teach you how. For some reason, the two go together like peanut butter and jelly.

For those who are lucky -- or unlucky, in some cases, when you see how it all plays out -- enough to make it to the big time, their schedules are crazy and their world becomes one giant fishbowl. The opportunities to cut loose are few and far between. There's no kicking back and having happy hour a couple times a week with friends or enjoying a glass of wine before bed. There are no chances to unwind, and the only time you’re going to have alcohol is when you’re out being famous.

Unfortunately, there are cameras everywhere, and if you overdo it, somebody's going to be there to capture it. It wasn’t really much easier for celebrities and musicians 20 or 30 years ago either. If you’re going to go after fame, you’re going to have to accept that people will be standing there 24/7 waiting for you to screw up so they can make some money on the pictures. And since musicians are as human as you and me, there are plenty who will screw up.

We’re sure that none of them wish this list exists, but maybe they learned a lesson. Maybe not. We know most would take it back if they could and none of them certainly planned for these photos to be floating around years later. Here are 15 Drunk Party Pics of Musicians You Weren’t Supposed To See.

Amy Winehouse

If ever there was a list that Amy Winehouse belongs on, it's this one. Unfortunately, despite her beauty and her amazing vocals, she was not long for this earth. She won’t be embarrassed by this photo because she died years ago, and even if she had made it, she was one of those people who never seemed to give a damn about anything or anybody. It was actually sad because she was just one of those people who were such trainwrecks, it all kind of seemed like part of the act, sort of like Courtney Love in the beginning. It's nice to think that had Winehouse survived, she would've figured out the error of her ways and gone on to create great music, but let’s be honest: in the history of rock and roll, there aren't a lot of tales of redemption. Winehouse is like all of the others -- another typical tale of excess.

Rihanna

What percentage do you think of people who say “I don’t care what people think about me” actually care what people think about them? We think it’s tiny. Usually, when people say that, they're the ones who care the most because they want people to think they're a rebel. On the other hand, there are people who generally don’t give an F. We genuinely believe that Rihanna is one of these people, and if she wants to drink, she’s gonna drink. If she wants to smoke a bit of the ganja, she’s gonna smoke a bit of the ganja. If she wants to dress up in next to nothing and ride on a float in some kind of Mardi Gras or Carnivale parade, do you think you’re standing in her way? Just get out of her way and make sure she gets a refill.

P Diddy and Jennifer Lopez

Dating Jennifer Lopez is like dating Halle Berry. If you’re patient, you’ll get your turn. Sean “P. Diddy/Puff Daddy” Combs” got his turn between 1999 and 2001 when both were at the peak of their careers -- if either really had one, when Lopez made the acting-to-singing transition, releasing her debut album, On the 6. Diddy was one of the producers on the album, and they hit it off, or thought it would be good to be seen together, or a combination of the two. So, they awkwardly appeared together, sometimes tipsy, but it always seemed more like two solo acts and less like a couple. Their relationship didn’t last long when it was put to the test after Diddy was arrested on a weapons charge in connection with a shooting at a Manhattan nightclub. There was nothing to the charge, police found, and the charge was quickly dropped, but in a world where everyone likes to “keep it real,” apparently, it was a little too real for JLo.

Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley

These two are so lame it makes us want to drink. The word poser was invented so we could label douchebags like Avril Lavigne and Deryck Whibley. Avril Lavigne was the Canadian pop princess who wanted everybody to know she was a total punk, and Deryck Whibley was in the awesomely original band Sum 41. Lavigne had to prove she wasn’t the corporate creation she truly was so she did “punk” things like wear ties, stick out her tongue, and spell words wrong. She even titled a song “Sk8er Boi” instead of its proper spelling of “Skater Boy.” Freakin’ rebel. Here, at a New Year’s Eve party, they show that they don’t need any stupid cups. They know they’re not allowed to drink from the bottle like this in a public bar, but who cares? They’re freakin’ rebels! The couple eventually divorced, probably from making each other throw up in their mouths too much. Lavigne, of course, to be a total freakin’ rebel and prove she could, in fact, get lamer, went on to marry Chad Kroeger, the lead singer of Nickelback. Freakin’ sad!

Britney Spears and Paris Hilton

There was a time when Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and Lindsay Lohan were the best of buds, tearing it up all over Hollywood. Why? Because it’s one thing when a single train derails, but when you can have three locomotives heading into the railroad yard at full throttle ready for a head-on collision, that’s just poetic. This unholy tripod didn’t last long since three alpha females rarely get along, especially when they're drunk off their gourd, which these three were known for at the time. While Lohan flirted with music, Hilton actually released an album that had a charting single, and we all know how big Spears career has been. Hilton has kept a lower profile in recent years since everybody knows to blame her for unleashing Kim Kardashian onto the world, and since she took up residence in Las Vegas, we haven't had to deal with Spears in the limelight nearly as much as we once did. Lohan pops up as eye candy on a yacht every now and then.

Justin Timberlake

Justin Timberlake is one of those guys that regular guys, on the surface, don’t want to like. He was in the Mickey Mouse Club, seems to believe he’s better looking than he really is (which allows him to get girls he shouldn’t), and was the lead singer of the biggest boy band since The Beatles. Yet he’s funny as hell, picks awesome movies to act in, and just has this coolness that makes every guy want to be his friend. Plus, he was smart enough to duck all of the controversy involving Janet Jackson’s top getting ripped off at the Super Bowl despite the fact he was the one who ripped the top off! That’s slick. Justin Timberlake is going to be in the spotlight as long as Justin Timberlake wants to be and not one minute longer and we have a feeling that after the above photo of a clearly intoxicated Timberlake got out, he made a promise to himself never to be seen that way again... and he hasn’t been.

Lily Allen

We always liked Lily Allen. She was that cute indie chick who never seemed like she wanted the fame she was getting and always was trying to find a way to undermine or walk away from it, be it by saying controversial things about other people, getting into Twitter wars, rarely releasing material, or deciding it was more important to raise a family. Hey, if that’s her thing, cool, but her ability to laugh at herself and present what appeared like bubblegum songs, yet deliver messages about intolerance, equality among the sexes, and homophobia through tunes that were easy to dance to is no easy feat. The reality is, you can only burn so many bridges along the way as Allen found out, having to form her own record label to release her last record from 2014. She’s now a mother, and the edge appears to be gone. In recent pictures, she looks like she fell into a cotton candy machine, looking something like a bizarro Katy Perry.

David Hasselhoff

There are surely people who are going to say David Hasselhoff isn’t a musician, and that forces us to ask what the definition of a musician really is because the sad fact is, David Hasselhoff has sold more albums than a lot of the people on this list worldwide. When the Berlin Wall fell, they didn’t want a Beatles reunion. They didn’t hire Michael Jackson or Madonna or Prince. They got Mr. Knight Rider, David Hasselhoff, who in certain parts of Europe, was as big a rock star as it got in the late 1980s. He never rose to those heights in North America, with him, in the last decade, being known mostly as a reality show judge and as a drunken slobbering idiot from the video shot by his daughter, of which a still is seen above. She wanted him to see what his drinking problem looked like as he rolled around his hotel room floor like a beached whale babbling about cheeseburgers, then released the video on the Internet. He sought help pretty fast after that.

Courtney Love

It’s almost as challenging to find a photo of Courtney Love where she doesn’t look like she’s completely wasted at any point in the last 25 years than one where she is, so we decided to find one that was more recent. She really doesn’t look all that different than she did when she was living her incredibly destructive lifestyle with iconic rocker Kurt Cobain. She’s been in an out of rehab and had scrapes with the law over the years, which proves that alcohol really is a preservative. She was great in the film The People vs. Larry Flynt, playing opposite Woody Harrelson as the porno publisher’s long-suffering girlfriend who eventually dies of an overdose. Come to think of it, how could she be anything but good. It would have been more fun to see Love play a straight-laced kindergarten teacher. Now that would have been a stretch.

Miley Cyrus

When we first saw this photo of Miley Cyrus, we thought that if you put her in a painter’s cap, if that top she has on were red, and if you gave her a bushy black handlebar mustache, she’d look just like Mario from Super Mario Brothers. Or at least she’d look like Captain Lou Albano from the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. It’s hard to imagine there are many photos in this world that Miley Cyrus is embarrassed of no matter how drunk, high, naked or any other state of being she is in that would freak out the rest of us, so you have to adapt a bit of a different standard with her. You can’t ask, “If I were Miley’s mother or her child in 20 years, which photos would I be embarrassed of?” because the answer would be all of them. She’s an interesting lady; we’ll give her that. Just when you thought the guy who brought country line dancing to mainstream America in the early 90s couldn’t make this country any worse, he introduces us to his daughter.

Grace Jones

One thing that’s true about every generation is that they always think they're cooler than the generation before them. They have better music, better style, better mind-altering substances, and better parties than those who came before them. While that will always be up for debate, we’d always put the late 1970s New York City disco era on a pedestal as the gold standard of decadence. What isn’t going on in this photo? This is from the 1979 birthday party of Grace Jones. She’s the pretty lady with the thumb in her mouth in the middle. She was a disco diva of the era who had some minor hits in the early 1980s and also appeared in Conan the Destroyer and A View to a Kill. She’s still active, having contributed a song on one of the Hunger Games soundtracks. So... anybody recognize one of the parents or grandparents on the motorcycle next to her, and do you think they’ll admit it’s them?

Jessica Simpson

Whether it’s the Super Bowl, the Olympics, or the Academy Awards... just about any competition... everybody remembers the top two at any given time. It’s easy to remember who are fighting for the top spot, and in the late 1990s, America was introduced to Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera, both beautiful young girls with great voices who could've been the next Madonna if they had played their cards right. And then, over in the corner, in a distant third, was Jessica Simpson. She was just as cute, had the same white trash quality of the other girls, and her voice was also strong. She pulled off the "ditzy blonde, aww shucks, just happy to be here" thing as well as the others, but something didn’t click. She’s still famous, but of course, Christina and Britney are more famous. You could argue it’s unclear who's No. 1 and No. 2, but it’s never been in doubt who's third.

Ozzy Osbourne

It’s hard to know where the facts end and the stories begin with Ozzy Osbourne, and you wonder if he even knows these days. Most recently seen on a travel show with his son, Jack, the Prince of Darkness seems more like the confused guy you see walking up and down the hall at most assisted living centers these days, and it surely has a lot to do with all of the damage alcohol has done to his system. He was actually fired from Black Sabbath in 1979 for his hard-partying lifestyle and credits his wife, Sharon, for getting him as close to clean and sober as he’s ever going to be. In 1982, he was arrested for public drunkenness after urinating at the Alamo and again in 1984 in Memphis, although there was no wee-wee involved. Osborne claims to have his drinking under control but also admits to not being completely dry these days.

Guns N Roses

You could make an argument that this is not a photo of Guns N Roses partying, but we would make an argument that they're holding alcohol, and that’s enough. There wasn't a time during the tumultuous years that arguably the greatest heavy metal hair band of its time wasn’t partying, and that, ultimately, was its undoing. While angst-ridden 14-year-olds will point to Nirvana as an amazing band, which they were, 14-year-olds who know how to rock can talk to both angst-ridden and rocking 44-year-olds who will tell you that Guns N Roses was far superior to Nirvana in every way possible because they were about having a good time, even in the midst of anxiety attacks. Yeah, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is brilliant, but compare catalogs. With songs like "November Rain," "Welcome to the Jungle," "Sweet Child O’ Mine," and "Paradise City," there is no comparison. You’ve got a time machine -- who are you going back to party with?

Christina Aguilera

She’s going to be remembered as having a better voice than Britney Spears and perhaps even as being a better dancer, but for whatever reason, Spears sold more albums. Maybe it has something to do with greater public breakdowns because aside from a few tipsy walks to the car, Aguilera doesn’t have as many drunken incidents as Britney Spears does. But this photo of her after being shoveled into a car, by far, beats anything Britney can bring to the table. She’s mostly known now as a judge on The Voice, and they seem like a group that likes to party, especially since the arrival of Miley Cyrus, so Christina Aguilera certainly fits right in with the rest of the crew. But, like most of the women on the list, like Britney or Lily Allen, having kids does seem to have calmed her party-girl ways. Kids ruin everything.