Eminem & Kimberley Anne Scott
Where do we even begin? High school classmates Marshall Mathers and Scott were married two different times, during which time the following things happened: She attempted suicide … He wrote several songs fantasizing about murdering her, including "Kim" and "'97 Bonnie and Clyde" … She sued him for defamation … He was arrested for assaulting a security guard he'd seen kissing her in a parking lot.
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Sid Vicious & Nancy Spungen
No, they weren't ever really married. But this is the stormy rock relationship against which all others pale. Boy meets girl, boy and girl take heroin, boy beats up girl, boy and girl take more heroin, boy (allegedly) stabs girl and is arrested for her murder, boy dies of an overdose. And later they made a movie about the whole sorry mess.
Tommy Lee & Pamela Anderson
A four-day courtship led to two kids, one sex tape and three years of marriage for the tattooed Mötley Crüe drummer and the pneumatic Baywatch sexpot. But the end of the marriage was also the beginning of four months in the slammer for Lee, who pleaded no contest to kicking Anderson. They reconciled when he got out of jail—but to the surprise of approximately nobody, it didn't last.
George Harrison, Eric Clapton & Pattie Boyd
British model and photographer Boyd endured what she has called a "hellish love triangle" while inspiring serious rock classics like "Something" and "Layla." She married Harrison in 1966, but his best friend Clapton fell madly in love with her and recorded the Layla album about that unrequited love. Boyd was flattered enough to eventually leave Harrison and marry Clapton.
Kurt Cobain & Courtney Love
At their wedding, he wore pajamas and she wore a dress once owned by Frances Farmer, the rebellious and troubled actress who'd been forcibly committed to mental institutions. Cobain's suicide ended an intense relationship that affected both their work ("I'm married/Buried" ran one Cobain lyric) and prompted stories about screaming, room-destroying fights and rumors about drug use that forced them to hire lawyers to retain custody of their daughter.
Paul Simon & Carrie Fisher
"Not only do I not like you, I don't like you personally!" she told him...on their honeymoon. Together on-and-off for 12 years but only married for two, the couple prompted lots of Simon songs, including one that goes, "My heart is allergic/To the woman I love." Says Fisher, "I was really good for material, but when it came to day-to-day living I was more than he could take."
Marvin Gaye & Anna Gordy
You want to know how rocky the relationship was between Motown's sexiest singer and the sister of company founder Berry Gordy? Just listen. When an ugly court battle resulted in Gaye being told to give Gordy half the royalties to his next album, he came up with a lazy, sprawling work contemptuously titled Here, My Dear. An instructive couplet: "Somebody tell me please/Why do I have to pay attorney's fees?"
Mick Fleetwood, Stevie Nicks & Lindsey Buckingham
It was a humongous hit, but Fleetwood Mac's Rumors also documented one hellacious romantic mess. Buckingham and Nicks were breaking up when they recorded songs like "Go Your Own Way," while Fleetwood was divorcing his wife and falling in love with Nicks. Oh, and the band's other couple, John and Christine McVie, was also splitting up.
Jerry Lee Lewis & Myra Gale Brown
The Killer knows all about bad marriages (he's been divorced six times), but only once did the union wreck his career. It happened in 1958, when a British reporter stumbled across the juicy info that the 23-year-old rocker's wife (his third) was his 13-year-old cousin, once removed. Goodness gracious, great balls of you're-fired, Jerry Lee. The marriage lasted for 13 years, and his career eventually recovered, sort of.
Paul McCartney & Heather Mills
The cute Beatle's first marriage, to Linda Eastman, led to 29 years of vegetarian bliss and (occasionally off-key) music making. His second, to former model Mills, disintegrated into name-calling ("he's a boring old fart") and an ugly divorce in which she emerged with close to $50 million, plus a scolding from the judge that she was a "less-than-impressive witness." Maybe, but she's a more-than-rich ex-wife.
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