Demon child Nancy Spungen

Surely this is a question for Mrs. Patsy Ramsey.

<- hire a small foreign faction?

Nancy was the least sympathetic “ murder victim” in modern time . She was pretty vile and actually loathsome

Mums and Dad should have given her the cha-cha heels for Christmas. Nice girls don’t wear cha-cha heels.

What the hell is cha-cha heels?

Oh R5 you're in for it now if other Eldergays see your comment. As Desi would have said, "Lucy, you got splainin' to do!"

Quickly though, cha cha heels are a kind of woman's shoe. There's a movie, Female Trouble, by John Waters, starring Divine as Dawn Davenport. Dawn wants black cha cha heels for Christmas. Her parents gift her the wrong shoes. Dawn gets very upset and throws a tantrum, storms out of the house. The rest is film history and for aging Eldergays, a reference line forever and so much more.

R5, it’s time you learned the history of your people.

I read the book by her mother. Nancy sounded like a total nightmare.

Sid was worse than Nancy, SHE never killed anyone!

Yet she's the one being dumped on.

^Sid may not have either.

Sid was a hawt skinny jacked punk. Just my type.

Sid was a hawt skinny jack ass punk. Just my type.

Well she was a sharp dresser. A total original.

She did deserve a kick to the cunt though.

Reading her mother’s memoir it was kind of terrifying to realize there are some people who are completely irredeemable and can’t be saved, even by a loving, caring parent. I don’t know what I would do with a monster of a child.

Who?

I was thinking while listening to the video that the parents should have just let her off herself as she often threatened to do.

Bad of me.

Sid was skinny and snarky. That's about all in the + column.

There's a really shitty low-budget documentary called "Who Killed Nancy" which basically said that Sid didn't kill Nancy, it was really Rockets Redglare. It was hilariously stupid. However, there are a few good interviews in it, one of which was a fellow punk rocker who went to Sid's house one day and he decided to hang his cat with his own belt, just for fun.

I'm not hugely impressed with people who complain about Nancy all the time but somehow never have anything bad to say about Sid.

R18 He killed Sid's cat or he brought his own cat there to kill it?

Sid killed a cat that had been hanging around his (Sid's) apartment.

[quote]...a fellow punk rocker who went to Sid's house one day and [bold] Sid [/bold] decided to hang his cat with his own belt, just for fun.

Better?

Ah it was Sid that killed the cat- he was seriusly awful i have no doubt he killed Nancy as well.

Nancy and Sid bonded over wicked behavior

My favorite bit of Sex Pistols trivia is that Sid Vicious actually lost a fight with Freddie Mercury!

Well, a minor kerfuffle, but the Sex Pistols and Queen had adjoining studios once, and gay-ass power-bottom Freddie threw Sid's punk ass out of his studio. Power Bottoms Rock!

Russian Defenestration.

R16 not bad at all. At some point parents need to be honest and realize their kids are a mistake, if the kids are anything like Sid and Nancy

Courtney Love got her look from Nancy Spungen; the mop of bleached blonde hair, the heavy makeup. Nancy was her role model.

As for Sid and Nancy, well, there are differing opinions. But some say that she sent Sid Vicious down his road to hell, turning him on to junk, getting him to wallow in drug addiction with her. She WAS the strong one in the relationship. Anyway, they both ended up the many way drug addicts tend to end up: dead. Most people would say good riddance.

Deborah Spungen's book is rather infuriating. She was quite an enabler. Nancy, from birth, was a child from hell, always screaming, constantly moving, unresponsive to affection. I seem to recall there was some problem with her birth and she may have been oxygen deprived, which might have caused brain damage. She grew into a completely uncontrollable, raging monster. She had a brother and a sister who were normal, but their their lives were a torment, living with their insane sister who did whatever she pleased. They had to abide by rules but their parents allowed Nancy to do anything she wanted because as Deborah Spungen told them "Nancy had her own rules." In order to have any peace at all in the house she and her husband allowed Nancy to do what she wanted. Instead of growing a spine and throwing her out (some tough love was definitely in order) they one say sat her down and said "We know you want a career in the music industry.(oh my God). So we're going to help you move to New York." They wanted her out but didn't have the balls to put her out, so they arranged for her to get an apartment in NY, which they said they'd pay for for 6 month until she could find a job. Well, once ensconced in NY she had easy access to drugs and became a prostitute. Nancy was allowed to go on her merry way, and ended up dead under a bathroom sink in a puddle of blood. What could have helped her? Probably nothing. But it certainly didn't help that she had a mother just kind of let things slide.

[quote]What the hell is cha-cha heels?

Well, plural for one thing.

Sid had no talent. Couldn't sing, write a song or play an instrument. He was a product marketed by Malcolm McLaren for The Sex Pistols. Sid seemed severely mentally challenged too and exploited by everyone around him. His mom gave him hard drugs as a kid. Sid was a follower, started out as a David Bowie fanboy then hopped on the punk scene and became a groupie. Got selected to be in the Sex Pistols for his look. They were a total manufactured boy band.

I like American punk like Television, Richard Hell, Blondie, The Ramones, Lydia Lunch, Suicide, Black Flag, The Germs etc. I feel they had a lot more musical talent given their art school background. UK stuff is great though like The Clash.

On both sides of the Atlantic, punk rock was very gay and filled with homos and dykes with tons of angst. A complete reaction to cock rock and corporate driven disco.

Oddly enough, I receive her sister Susan's recipe newsletter. Nancy was an anomaly.

Nancy was likely autistic with other serious comorbidities. The treatment back then was abysmal. She and Sid were both doomed to die young even if they never met. Neither should be deified but people are dumb.

That's what stands out to me, R34. What people are describing as "a monster" is a disturbed, probably brain-damaged girl who maybe could have been saved or at least treated. I don't know much about the whole thing beyond the Sex Pistols and that movie (Sid & Nancy), since I haven't read the mother's book, but to have written her off because she was a nightmare, while understandable, is not the most responsible way to parent.

Nancy was a hideous real life version of the Bad Seed

Some kids are irredeemable and require constant monitoring and care. If one can relieve themselves of the bad luck of demon spawn, why not do it? You have one life to live

R37 To be honest, I definitely applaud parents with mentally disabled children who are very involved and do their best for them. A lot of parents have regrets and find they don't have the nurturing attitude and patience to care for a disabled child. It's a huge burden just like caring for an elderly parent who has dementia and violent tantrums. Some people just can't do it and I don't think it means they are bad people either.

I think Nancy Spungen was beyond help. So was Sid Vicious. They were doomed, both of them. And people call their brief, catastrophic union a love story! Love, my ass! It was toxic co-dependence.

They didn’t write her off r35. Nancy was definitely brain damaged from birth, and there wasn’t much anyone could do for her.

R31 It's interesting that Sid Vicious is so idolized and overstimated, recentry i've read a comment that said that Sid Vicious would have turn in the grave about the Sex Pistols mini serie or something...i mean...as if Sid Vicious wasn't a commercial product himself.

He indeed had no talent, he was exactly like Manic Street Preacher Richey Edwards (well at least Richei wrote lyrics i think)

R23 And Freddy Mercury loved cats

They were only 20 when they died. Still kids.

With the Freddie Mercury and Sid Vicious quarrel, Sid started it and at some point Mercury called Sid " Mr. Ferocious" and then it was on. Mercury was in the boxing club at his boarding school so he knew what to do.

Nancy had no chance. I assume that the parts of her brain which were harmed covered rationally of thought and/or impulse control. I'm no doctor obviously.

Sid was not like Gary Oldman's (what's his last name again?) portrayal in that movie. There's no way. All childlike and the punk version of being footlocker and fancy free? Heck no. I never bought that.

Drugs can kick in any mental illness.

I named my cat after her.

True.

R44–He was portrayed the same way in Pistol.

Nancy Spungen was definitely born retarded. They should have given the retarded monster away!!

She was a nightmare to deal with, she was from Montco. Should have been left in a crack house in Camden NJ, let the junkies have their way with the retarded psycho child. Nancy would have loved it.

At some point in both Sid and Nancy's formative years, somebody should have repeatedly kicked both of their spoiled rotten asses up and down the street a couple of times.

Sid was a bitch bottom for the punk scene. Under the scabs, scars and grime, he was a submissive twink who liked being used and abused. Surely he gave head and spread hole.

I wonder if doing drugs gave her any relief from the fire in her brain?

Nancy was actually tested at superior intelligence. She was definitely autistic and very cruel and violent . She terrorized her younger sister and parents . She was so extremely selfish, and completely devoid of any empathy . Her parents should have beat the crap out of her or put her in a home for disturbed children

Why does anyone think beating the crap out of a brain damaged kid works? Hell it doesn’t even work for “normal” kids. And r52, they did put her in institutions and special schools. Nothing worked.

I have a lot of sympathy for Nancy. She had a medical problem that today might be better treated. Back then (50 years ago!) there wasn’t much that was done since they thought it was behavioral rather than physical.

Sid did a good thing for humanity

Yeah treatment back then was atrocious. Electroshock therapy, lobotomies, abusive behavioral therapy, locking them in rooms and other experimental methods that they had no idea what they were going. Many times it made the conditions worse. Look up Rosemary Kennedy and her lobotomy. Institutions were also rife with physical, emotional and sexual abuse too.

[quote] She was definitely autistic and very cruel and violent .

In Deborah Spungen's book a doctor said that by judging her behavior it sounded like him Nancy was schizophrenic. He suggested her going to a facility that would determine that once and for all but she wouldn't go. I think that's probably what she was. As for Sid, he just seemed immature and stupid.

R56 Schizophrenia emerges when one is in their late teens and early twenties, Nancy had issues from day one, and really even too early for it to be just autism, which tends to present in early toddlerhood.

Literal demon child.

Agreed r57. She didn’t hear voices or have hallucinations. I think her Impulse control portion of her brain was destroyed due to lack of oxygen when she was born.

R31 Yes, they were a boy band. That's why they didn't write their own music and lyrics, didn't played their own instruments and danced choreographed dances on stage

R60 I don't think the definition boy band is restricted to just pop groups. Just assembled, manufactured and heavily controlled and marketed to a specific audience. The Jonas Brothers played instruments and nobody would debate they were packaged and controlled. The Monkees played instruments too but they did attempt to break away and do their own thing. The point of punk is it's anti-corporate and underground that made Sex Pistols seem phony as fuck because they were formed by Malcolm McLaren and their purpose was to capitalize the growing punk scene and growing youth dissatisfaction in The UK.

Her parents had to literally walk on tiptoes with no tv, radio on because infant Nancy would awake and start howling cry that was inconsolable . She was a fucking monster 👹. And created so much horror

R61 That was Malcolm McLaren's side of the story. He had absolutely nothing to do with their music. And how was their purpose to capitalize the growing punk scene? You can say that for any other punk band as well. The Clash, The Damned...they were all on major labels.

[quote] . She didn’t hear voices or have hallucinations.

Who knows if she did? She was never properly diagnosed. I don't think it was autism, though. She was someone in the grip of a severe mental illness that but since what it was was never definitively determined there can only be speculation.

R64, she was diagnosed aspergers with possible Schizophrenia

I read Deborah Spungen's book. She brought up the possibility of schizophrenia but nowhere did it say Nancy was EVER diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. She wasn't autistic.

It was revealed post death r666☝🏼 You are autistic and can’t handle the truth . It’s a dreadful condition

[quote] It was revealed post death. You are autistic and can’t handle the truth . It’s a dreadful condition

Who revealed it, the National Enquirer? You are the autism troll and you are a pitiable asshole. Probably got autism yourself.

The Sex Pistols were still assembled and packaged for mass consumption. The band members may have had some musical backgrounds but some like Sid didn't. It was all image. Nobody can deny their influence and impact on that UK pink scene but on the other hand, punk's ethos is anti-establishment and anti-capitalist. The Sex Pistols being created for profit and being all about image rather than raw talent and substance is why they have so many detractors. Also the swastikas don't help given many punks are against racism and hierarchies.

R69 Swastikas were for shock value, not cause they were Nazis.

R70 Yes and it was shitty and ended up being taken seriously by racists. Just like how the Confederate flag was used for shock value in the 70s and 80s and ended up taken seriously by racists. This shit never ages well and it's poorly thought out. Plus good music shouldn't rely on just image and shock value. That's juvenile.

R71 Plus good music shouldn't rely on just image and shock value? Um, it didn't? Have you ever even listen to Never Mind The Bollocks. It is a brilliant record.

"The point of punk is it's anti-corporate and underground that made Sex Pistols seem phony as fuck because they were formed by Malcolm McLaren and their purpose was to capitalize the growing punk scene "

Not entirely, I just watched some Youtube stuff about the SP's, some of the bandmates had played together or known each other before McLaren commercialized the SP's. But McLaren was the one who added his Trade fantasy boy Sid Vicious to the band, even if he had zero musical ability and was horrible and dangerous.

How could an infant terrorize their parents, i mean, i'm pretty sure she is exagerating and probaly she does it because she doesn't want to admit she was an awful mother.

I read Deborah Spungen's book years ago. I remember she sounded pretty defensive. But imagine, if you will, what it must have been like for an upper-middle-class Jewish family in the 1970's to have a child like Nancy, whose problems went from inexplicably bad to spectacularly awful, and how they were probably made to feel (by society at large) was a reflection on themselves and what they themselves did/not do.

Also, the general (even medical) understanding of mental illness, while still highly imperfect, has undergone quantum shifts in recent years.

Only very recently, for example, has American culture begun to acknowledge that Kurt Cobain's suicide and Courtney Love's various acting-out incidents were likely manifestations of mental health issues, and not just part of the zeitgeist.

1970's American cultural understanding of mental illness seems savagely ignorant and primitive by comparison to even to a very flawed recent standard.

R74 the other two kids turned out wonderfully. Medicine and psychiatry just wasn’t prepared to handle a child as brain damaged as Nancy was. She was also unique that in other areas, she was super intelligent . Today she’d probably be another Elon Musk.

Nancy's parents tried everything they could to help her, but nothing worked. Their other kids excelled, which I think tells you all you need to know. Nancy had something very wrong with her from birth, and it wasn't (at that time) fixable.

R74, I watched an investigative report on sociopathic kids. One kid was threatening to kill his family and rape his sister at a very young age. I think he was institutionalized at 10. They had to lock knives up and basically lock their and the kids bedroom doors at night so the little psychopath couldn't kill them in their sleep.