Outrageously Good Tales About Little Richard

Being gay and black in the deep south during the 1950s may sound like a recipe for disaster, but not so much for Little Richard.

Innovative, extravagant, and eccentric—Little Richard embodied these qualities and more. Beyond his electrifying performances, the late legend led a life characterized by a whirlwind of experiences, including indulgence in sex, drugs, spirituality, and acts of generosity. He exuded a blend of audacity, charm, and kindness that transcended the piano keys, shaping the personas of icons like Elvis, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Elton John, Prince, and David Bowie, among countless others. Both on stage and off, he epitomized the essence of a "rock star." Here are some of the most sensational stories about Little Richard—some rumored, many recounted by the man himself—that underscore his legendary status.

He Had an Orgy With Buddy Holly, Maybe

In the authorised biography "The Life and Times of Little Richard," penned by historian Charles White (also known as Dr. Rock) in 1985, Richard recounted a colourful anecdote from the 1950s involving his close companion, the stripper Lee Angel, and the emerging star Buddy Holly:

“One time Buddy came into my dressing room while I was jacking off with Angel sucking my titty. Angel had the fastest tongue in the west. She was doing that to me and Buddy took out his thing. She opened up her legs and he put it in her. He was having sex with Angel, I was jacking off, and Angel was sucking me when they introduced his name on stage. He finished and went to the stage still fastening himself up. I’ll never forget that. He came and he went.”

Angel called shenanigans on the story and appeared in GQ in 2010, saying, “I knew Buddy, but I didn’t know I knew Buddy that well.”

He Had Orgies With Lots of Others, Too

Richard was a proud lover of group sex and never seemed to view it as taboo. Just read how casually he describes one:

I remember one night, we had this wonderful orgy going. It was one of the best I have ever been to. And in the middle of this orgy, that was fantastic, somebody knocked on my door. I said: “Just a moment! This is an orgy!”

He also found ways to keep his religion involved. “When I had all these orgies going on,” he told GQ, “I would get up and go and pick up my Bible. Sometimes I had my Bible right by me.”

He Identified As “Omnisexual”

Richard's exploration of both heterosexual and homosexual relationships commenced in his youth, resulting in his father expelling him from their home at the tender age of 15. Over the course of his life, he oscillated between acknowledging his homosexuality and condemning it as sinful, creating a complex portrayal of his sexual identity. This nuanced perspective on Richard's preferences aligns with what he disclosed to White: “What kind of sexual am I? I am omnisexual!”

He Loved Voyeurism — and Got Arrested for It

Richard's voyeuristic inclinations often landed him in trouble. In a notable incident from 1955, he was apprehended while observing a couple in a car, resulting in a three-day stint behind bars. Additionally, in a candid interview with Rolling Stone in 1984, he admitted to overseeing his bandmates during their group sexual encounters, shedding light on another aspect of his unconventional lifestyle. “I used to like to watch these people having sex with my band men. They should have called me Richard the Watcher,” he said.

He Masturbated, Constantly

“Everybody used to tell me that I should get a trophy for it, I did it so much. I got to be a professional jack-offer. I would do it just to be doing something, seven, eight times a day,” he said in the White book.

He Gifted People His Own Shit

On a few occasions, Richard would take a dump in a box or other receptacle and give it as a present. He did this to his own mother as well as an elderly female neighbour. “She wanted to know what I had brought her. She said, ‘Let us see what Richard has brought for me.’ Then I just heard, ‘Aaaaaaa, aaaaaaahhh — I’m gonna kill him. I’ll kill him!’” he recounted in White’s book.

He Once Quit Music … Because of Sputnik

The intense space race of the late 1950s between the United States and the Soviet Union instilled widespread anxiety among people. This competition almost spelled the end of Richard's career when the Russian satellite Sputnik passed over Australia, where he happened to be performing. “This big light came over and it was frightening to me. I told the guys I was with in Australia, ‘I am coming out of this business,’” he told GQ. I have always feared that the world was going to end. We got on a ferry and I said, ‘Well, if you don’t believe I’m going to stop, I’ll throw all my diamonds in the ocean.’ And I threw all my big rings in the water.”

Following the incident in 1957, Richard took a hiatus from the music industry and embarked on a journey as a preacher, traveling across the country. During this time, he married Ernestine Harvin, although their union dissolved in the early 1960s. Around this period, he encountered legal trouble for a homosexual encounter in a bus-station restroom, leading to his arrest in 1962.

He fired Jimi Hendrix

During his stint as a sideman for Little Richard in the mid-1960s, Jimi Hendrix absorbed numerous lessons, yet his stage and personal demeanor clashed with his bandleader's. There are differing accounts regarding the reasons behind Richard's decision to part ways with Jimi—from chronic lateness and excessive flamboyance to financial disputes and unwelcome advances—but their brief collaboration did yield at least one recording session, resulting in the creation of a gospel-tinged track. “I Don’t Know What You’ve Got (But It’s Got Me).”

He Got Spiritual Counselling From Bob Dylan

There's speculation that Bob Dylan played a role in inspiring Little Richard's conversion to Judaism, a topic the latter musician had often been discreet about. Nonetheless, Richard's attendance at synagogue, participation in Jewish holidays, and observance of the Friday Sabbath suggest a genuine embrace of the faith. Regardless, Dylan's supportive presence proved instrumental in Richard's recovery after he narrowly survived a car accident in 1985. As he once told director John Waters in an interview for Playboy:

I feel Bob Dylan is my blood brother. I believe if I didn’t have a place to stay, Bob Dylan would buy me a house. He sat by my bed; he didn’t move for hours. I was in pain that medicine couldn’t stop. My tongue was cut out, leg all tore up, bladder punctured. I was supposed to be dead. Six feet under. God resurrected me; that’s the reason I have to tell the world about it.

He Was a Literal Snake-Oil Salesman

Following his expulsion from home by his father, Richard started working with Dr. Hudson’s Medicine Show as a performer, helping the man sell his counterfeit wares. He told Rolling Stone:

He would go into towns, have all the black people come around and tell them that the snake oil was good for everything. But he was lying. Snake oil! I was helping him lie. He had a stage out in the open and a feller by the name of James would play piano. I would sing, “Cal’donia, Cal’donia, what makes your big head so hard?”

He Developed a Massive Drug Problem

Though a teetotaler in his early career, Richard got into the world of alcohol and drugs with the same gusto as he did music, dabbling with marijuana, cocaine, PCP, heroin, LSD, and more. “I was also blowing about $1,000 of cocaine a day,” he told People. “When I’d blow my nose, blood and flesh would come out on my handkerchief.” After professional setbacks and personal tragedies, including the loss of his brother from a heart attack in the ’70s, he eventually got clean.

He Used His Own Rolling Stone Blurb to Proclaim His Greatness

“A lot of people call me the architect of rock & roll. I don’t call myself that, but I believe it’s true.” That’s how Richard began his self-penned blurb for Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Artists of All Time” feature. While primarily chronicling his life and musical journey, Richard didn't shy away from critiquing his musical successors, the established rock hierarchy, and the notion of hierarchical lists.:

I appreciate being picked one of the top 100 performers, but who is number one and who is number two doesn’t matter to me anymore. Because it won’t be who I think it should be. The Rolling Stones started with me, but they’re going to always be in front of me. The Beatles started with me — at the Star Club in Hamburg, Germany, before they ever made an album — but they’re going to always be in front of me. James Brown, Jimi Hendrix — these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to them, and they’re going to always be in front of me.

He Became the Go-to Celebrity Wedding Officiant

Among his many talents, Richard also had a busy stint as wedding officiant to the stars. As the E Street Band’s Steven Van Zandt recalled, his 1982 wedding to Maureen Santoro was the first Richard presided over, but it was far from the last. He went on to officiate the weddings of Tom Petty and Dana York (“He did yell, ‘Shut up!’ at one point,” Petty told the Chicago Tribune in 2001, shortly after the wedding. “He was really nervous, but so was I”), Cyndia Lauper and David Thornton, and even Demi Moore and Bruce Willis’s 1987 wedding.

He’d also go on to officiate the fictional wedding of a couple on the soap opera One Life to Live in 1995 and, in 2006, presided over the very real nuptials of 20 contest-winning couples in one ceremony at a casino in Louisiana. “This ain’t no ‘Tutti Frutti,’ this is real,” he told the crowd that day.

His Biggest Hit Was Almost Certainly About Anal Sex

Finally, we have to note the lore surrounding “Tutti Frutti.” His 1955 career-defining hit originally included these lyrics:

Tutti frutti — good booty! If it don’t fit — Don’t force it! You can grease it — Make it easy

“Good booty” was eventually changed to “Aw rooty,” slang for “all right,” The narrative surrounding the origins of the song typically suggests a suggestive theme involving clandestine activities. Dorothy Labostrie, listed as one of the co-writers, later claimed that she devised the lyrics based on the name of an ice cream flavour. However, considering Richard's known inclinations, it's challenging to envision the rock and roll classic originating from such innocent inspirations.

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