10 Craziest Times Things Were Thrown at Musicians On Stage
These shocking stories of musicians getting weird things thrown at them on stage will have you shaking your head in disbelief. For this list, we’ll be ranking the wildest instances where fans got a little too excited at concerts and ended up tossing some sort of object at the artist.
Transcript
00:00 "I've been seeing it, these people have lost it, can you imagine?"
00:03 Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the top 10 craziest times
00:08 things were thrown at musicians on stage.
00:11 "Nobody would say, 'Okay, I got my keys, I got my tickets, I got my chicken.'"
00:15 For this list, we're ranking the wildest instances where fans got a little too
00:20 excited at concerts and ended up tossing some sort of object at the artist.
00:24 What are your thoughts on this kind of behavior? Let us know in the comments.
00:29 Hey Mojoholics, for a chance to win cash prizes, play our live daily trivia challenges every day
00:35 at 3pm and 8pm eastern only at watchmojo.com/play.
00:40 Number 10. Smartphone - Bebe Rexha
00:44 The man arrested for throwing a cell phone at Bebe Rexha during a June 2023 concert has
00:50 been quoted as saying the act was "funny."
00:52 "You can see in the video, Rexha falling to her knees, crew members rushing in to help."
00:58 We beg to differ about this bit of bad taste and poor judgment,
01:01 since there's really nothing funny about interrupting a performer on stage.
01:05 "Fans of the Grammy-nominated 'Meant to Be' singer took to Twitter to show their support,
01:10 quote, 'We were all having a good time. I mean, who would even do that? We hope you're okay.'"
01:15 Rexha suffered an obvious shiner as a result of the incident, and the man in question,
01:20 Nicholas Malvagna, was arraigned in a New York City court on felony assault and harassment charges.
01:26 Although a photo of a smiling Rexha was posted to social media in the aftermath of this incident,
01:31 the kind of behavior, as we'll see throughout this video, is definitely not okay.
01:36 "Yeah, we've had her here in a summer concert series, couldn't be a nicer.
01:39 And we hope she had a full and recovered."
01:43 Number 9. Loaves of Bread - Smash Mouth
01:46 Sometimes it's the poor thinking and actions of one individual that sets up a stage incident.
01:52 Other times, it's a perfect storm of decisions that just go from bad to worse.
01:56 "They're ruining the show for thousands of people right now."
02:00 Giving out free bread to an increasingly drunk group of concertgoers at a food and music fest
02:05 probably wasn't the best idea, at least not according to Smash Mouth singer Steve Harwell,
02:09 who was pelted by carbohydrates during a gig in 2015.
02:13 "Come on, somebody throw one more thing at me, right now."
02:16 The taste of Fort Collins' event in Colorado got the singer steaming mad,
02:21 and his on-stage freakout was captured by cell phone cameras for the entire world to see.
02:25 Number 8. Feminine Hygiene Products - One Direction
02:30 The only person at the end of the day who truly knows why something is thrown on stage
02:36 is the person who throws that item.
02:38 "So we've seen a shoe to the crotch, flying bras galore, and now a tampon?"
02:42 As a result, we really can't tell you why someone decided to throw tampons at the band.
02:47 There's footage of both Harry Styles and Zayn Malik looking rather confused
02:51 at the sight of feminine hygiene products making their way to the stage.
02:54 "Zayn Malik was less than impressed, looking shocked,
02:58 and then a little bit disgusted at his present."
03:01 People with periods, sanitary products are expensive.
03:04 We can't afford to be throwing them at artists who have no use for them.
03:08 "So I bet when the guys signed up to be in a boy band,
03:10 they didn't think they'd get things thrown at them all the time."
03:14 Number 7. Erotic Accessory - Lil Nas X
03:17 Occasionally, an instance of on-stage distraction can just turn out to be a funny one-time incident.
03:24 Such was the case at a Lollapalooza date in Stockholm, Sweden in 2023.
03:28 Lil Nas X was performing when, all of a sudden,
03:33 an explicit erotic accessory was tossed onto the stage by a fan.
03:37 "I look like s*** on stage!"
03:39 Lil Nas X, to his credit, laughed it off and took the incident in stride.
03:43 He checked out the accessory, picked it up, and good-naturedly asked who tossed the item on stage.
03:48 No one was hurt, no real harm done, and Lil Nas X turned it into a joke.
03:52 Number 6. Lollipop - David Bowie
03:58 Now, for a moment of contrast.
04:00 It was not okay when musical icon David Bowie was hit in the eye with a lollipop
04:05 while performing in Oslo, Norway back in 2004.
04:08 Bowie didn't take it in stride either.
04:11 "Why are you creepy?"
04:12 He verbally called out audience members from the stage
04:15 and appeared to be in a rather great deal of legitimate pain.
04:19 One of Bowie's eyes had already been injured in a fistfight back in '62,
04:23 and the errantly tossed pop hit the singer in that same damaged eye.
04:27 "Please keep your affection to yourself."
04:29 The thin white duke had some choice words in Oslo on this night,
04:32 but continued to finish the concert and even joked about the incident
04:36 while tossing guitar picks into the audience after the set was finished.
04:39 "I ask for so little."
04:41 Number 5. Wee Bottles - Cher Lloyd
04:45 The act of throwing a water bottle filled with human urine
04:48 is sadly not without precedent in the United Kingdom.
04:51 "That is disgusting."
04:53 The Reading Festival, for example, holds something of a tradition
04:56 with audience attendees tossing these sorts of bottles at performers.
05:00 Cher Lloyd was unfortunately added to this list of performers in 2012,
05:05 albeit while performing at a different music festival.
05:07 The incident took place at the V Festival date in Chelmsford, Essex,
05:11 and the crowd was unrelenting.
05:13 Lloyd was pelted with full bottles of the stuff
05:16 and was visibly and understandably upset by the scene.
05:19 "Now I feel like looking at you crying."
05:22 Number 4. Sausages - Lady Gaga
05:25 We go up a level on the horrible scale with our next example of poor fan behavior.
05:30 Audiences at a 2012 Lady Gaga gig in Barcelona, Spain threw sausages at the singer,
05:35 apparently in response to Gaga's perceived weight gain.
05:38 "I'll be your girl, backstage at your show."
05:42 To make things worse, this Barcelona gig was also marred by Gaga's ill health,
05:46 which resulted in the singer becoming visibly sick multiple times throughout the gig.
05:51 The paparazzi singer shook off this reprehensible assault by picking them up
05:54 and commenting in stride via Twitter.
05:57 Lady Gaga may have kept her cool with regards to this deli attack,
06:00 "Don't stop for anyone."
06:03 but we just don't understand how so-called fans of an artist can be so callous, cruel, and uncouth.
06:10 "It's time to take out the trash."
06:12 Number 3. A live bat - Ozzy Osbourne
06:15 It's one of the most infamous incidents in rock and roll history.
06:19 That time, heavy metal icon Ozzy Osbourne bit the head of a live bat
06:23 while on stage in Des Moines, Iowa.
06:25 "It was a sheer accident actually."
06:26 "Well, wait a minute, before you start explaining it, let's tell them what you did."
06:31 It took place back in 1982, when Osbourne was at the height of his career excesses,
06:36 during a planned participation sequence.
06:38 The sequence called for Osbourne to throw bits of meat into the audience,
06:42 to which the crowd would often respond with their own projectiles.
06:45 "Yeah, I got a lot of weird people at my concerts, like, you know, it's kind of rock and roll."
06:51 This show on the 20th of January saw a fan toss up a live bat.
06:55 Ozzy, thinking the bat was a toy, bit into its head.
06:59 Only it wasn't fake. Ozzy had bitten a real bat,
07:03 and required multiple rabies shots after this was all said and done.
07:06 "No, no, no, no, no, no!"
07:09 Number 2. A chicken - Alice Cooper
07:12 Our next example of hard rock excess is somewhat similar to the Ozzy incident.
07:16 Although, Alice Cooper did not devour this chicken on stage.
07:19 "I ring the place up, and the feathers are going,
07:22 and I look down, and there's a chicken on stage."
07:26 The shock rock legend did have one of the animals tossed onto a stage
07:30 back at the 1969 Toronto Rock and Roll Revival Festival.
07:33 "I thought, let's have a live chicken, it'll be fantastic. I threw it out at him."
07:38 Alice, believing the chicken would just fly away, tossed it back into the crowd.
07:42 Chickens don't fly, however, and the crowd, quite frankly, tore it to pieces.
07:47 Feathers flew, bits of bird went everywhere,
07:49 and Alice Cooper's legacy in the rock and roll cultural pantheon was complete.
07:54 "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey!
07:57 I'll drive you like you're never on a feather, hey!"
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08:15 Number 1. Mom's Ashes - Pink
08:20 We've seen a lot of strange things hit stages so far in this list, but this one takes the cake.
08:24 "Is this your mom?"
08:26 Pink was performing at Hyde Park in London,
08:28 when she was hit by a plastic bag containing some strange powder.
08:32 The powder, as it turns out, was the human ashes of the mother of an audience member.
08:37 Pink engaged in a brief conversation with the audience member in question,
08:40 but appeared to be visibly shaken and unsure of the situation.
08:43 "I don't know how to feel about this."
08:45 The singer eventually placed the bag in a safe place on the stage,
08:49 but here's a word of advice to everyone out there who's even thinking of trying this stunt.
08:54 Don't.
08:55 We. Do. Not. Know. How. To. Deal. With. This. Stunt.
08:58 [Music]