Fame and murder, d4vd and Celeste, Sid and Nancy
Murder and celebrity.
A famous man has committed murder…
12 October, 1978: Nancy Spungen’s body is discovered in the room she shared with her boyfriend at the Hotel Chelsea. She had died earlier that morning. Said boyfriend, rockstar Sid Vicious (John Ritchie) of the Sex Pistols, confesses to the murder to hotel staff. Then he retracts that statement, claiming he cannot remember. The murder weapon is identified as a Jaguar Wilderness K-11 knife Spungen had gifted him days earlier.
23 October, 1978: Ritchie is rushed to the hospital after attempting suicide, following a radical detox under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Teich.
1 February, 1979: Following another detox, Ritchie overdoses on heroin. Anne Beverley, his mother, produces a suicide note and claims Spungen’s murder was a planned event between the two. She will later, against the wishes of Spungen’s family, scatter his ashes over her gravesite.
7 November, 1986: The film Sid and Nancy makes it’s US premiere. The film receives rave reviews. John Lydon of the Sex Pistols, who knew both parties, would later claim the film was inaccurate and glorified heroin addiction.
Sid and Nancy, the “punk Romeo and Juliet”, is one of those celebrity myths that just sort of stuck around. The rockstar and his girlfriend, addicted to drugs and each other, who are equally culpable for their own deaths. A glorifying moment of tragedy that has washed clean the sins of any involved and become an image, a halloween costume, and all sorts of merchandise. It is consumable, not just as news, but as iconography. Perfect for a true crime podcast.
Sid Vicious and the band the Sex Pistols is often touted as either the face of Punk or the industry plants designed to kill it. His talent, his music, his legacy, it is all for the taking. God Save The Queen (1977), which narrowly missed the number one spot on the UK charts, had a viral moment following Elizabeth Windsor’s death in 2022. You will hear the music of the Sex Pistols on the radio, in film and television, online, in advertisements, and everywhere else that wants a Punk edge to commercial art.
The epitaph is “American stripper” has been attached to Nancy Spungen when you look up her name online. Not “Manager”, which was the role she took on in Ritchie’s life before her death. “American stripper” is what she should be known for. A job she took on for survival in her mid-teens before beginning the one and only adult relationship she ever held. That is who she has been deemed by the algorithm.
“American stripper”
We know what the world thinks of strippers. Of sex workers. Of women.
There’s a certain way people talk about Nancy Spungen that tells us that she is not the tragic loss in this equation. Spungen’s cultural memory is that of a blonde junkie with an attitude problem. The phrase "Nauseating Nancy" became attached to her during the couple’s brief time together. Her reputation was, by her death, in tatters as an annoying addict who had attached herself to the real talent. Many still blame her for his downfall and death. His mother’s choice to scatter his ashes on her grave was one last tie between them in life, as their toxic love story became a thing of legend.
Nancy admitted to her mother that Ritchie would beat her on occasion. She also told her she planned to die before twenty-one. The fact that he helped her do so is sometimes framed as romantic by teenagers and those who think like teenagers. He had her consent, so it was fine.
Just like Juliet.
davd is a rising star in the music industry. He is twenty-one years old and released his debut album last year. His voice can - or could at one point - be heard on tracks with stars like Kali Uchis and Laufey. You could hear his voice via purchases on Fortnite. He headlined three tours and was a supporting act on SZA’s 2023 tour for SOS for twenty dates. Songs of his, including the Top Forty hit Romantic Homicide (2022), regularly go viral on TikTok.
Scroll for a while and you’ll see edits of some tragic couple. Maybe even ones of Sid and Nancy.
This is undoubtably a voice for a lot of angsty teenagers. His music is emotionally charged and resonates with a certain sect of young people who, in previous generations, might have found themselves drawn to Vicious and the music of the Sex Pistols. Kids who are angry and sad and full of energy. They are drawn to this idea of a fundamentally broken young man who fantasises about doing bad things. The glamour of being both a potential actor of violence and a victim to that ideation. It is aspirational to those who want to “crash out” in the same ways.
Celeste Rivas Hernandez was fourteen when she was murdered. The same age as many of d4vd’s fans, because she was one alongside her position as his girlfriend and victim. Some reports have put her age at fifteen, but this is inaccurate, as the child in question never got to see that specific birthday. It’s the type of inaccuracy that comes from checking ages solely based off years and not dates - the type of rushed work that exemplifies a lot of shoddy reporting. It’s also a tactic some are using to try and soften the blow of the predation in question.
Her body was found in d4vd’s Tesla. He allegedly sent her texts following the murder in order to cover up his involvement in the crime.
Look up her name on social media and you’ll see the narrative forming. The victim narrative of d4vd. Most aren’t directly saying they believe he is innocent, but more that there was something wrong with Celeste. A child who maybe didn’t deserve to die, but certainly did not earn the right to live. They’ll talk about her murder and mutilation in the abstract. Refuse to engage with the predation, which goes back to before she entered her teenage years. A victim of grooming has “bad vibes” or “isn’t that innocent” as a way of forming a narrative to protect the brand. He’s not the problem. Separate the art from the artist.
d4vd was discovered to have had 40 terabytes of CSAM stored in his iCloud. Not in a hard drive. Not on his computer. Easily accessible via his phone and able to be shared at any point. Some of that material, almost certainly, will be of his victim.
Fame innoculates the artist (almost always male) from a certain amount of consequence. Not all of it, but money and the soft power of celebrity are certainly roadblocks to getting justice. Regardless of what is found, there are people who are convinced that their idol is innocent. Look to those who still reject the guilty verdict of Tory Lanez in his assault of Megan Thee Stallion. Johnny Depp is convinced the world to laugh at Amber Heard’s rape testimony. Chris Brown and the cult of people who blame Rihanna for his assault on her. Brad Pitt’s alleged abuse of Angelina Jolie and their children is basically a buried story. Diddy’s crimes are a joke to general audiences.
The “victim” in these situations is almost always the fans. Those who must make a choice between supporting their idol and holding to their purported morals. They almost always pick the art. Rihanna was a bad girlfriend and hit him first. Those children wanted to lay in bed with a grown man. Cassie is money hungry. Celeste wasn’t that innocent of a child.
There is a trend of edits to the song Romantic Homicide with images of Celeste Hernandez. This idea of tying her to the music, while not letting go of the music. Separate the art from the artist but not his crime. Reclaiming it for the girl he almost certainly murdered. It is yet another reaching, flailing attempt to hold onto the idol. That money from the streams goes to him. To fund his case. Money off the back of his victim. Tying her short life to his in some grand, romantic tragedy soundtracked by the music he made about her. The eleven year old girl a seventeen year old boy met online and ended up dead in his car at fourteen.
It would be easy to say that murder is different. That d4vd’s trial will end how it ends and his career will be over. But time has proven that nothing but minor inconvenience awaits him. John Simon Ritchie never faced trial for the murder of Nancy Spungen, but fans and amateur detectives have spent nearly fifty years looking for literally any other suspect. Theories swirl around various people with access to the room in an effort to discard Ritchie’s blame.
The cult continues to follow it’s long dead leader.