As we now know, after seeing Cadillac Records and witnessing further behaviors from the late great Etta James, she lived a lifestyle that would have put many of these reality TV stars of today to shame. She was a great entertainer who experienced a great deal of personal struggles. She’s lived through neglect from her father; homelessness as a child; drug addictions; according to her son, she also had dramatic behavioral problems later in life as the result of a severe urinary tract infection; she served time in Angola prison when she was younger, which is one of the most vicious prisons in America; and she also had bouts of domestic abuse in her relationships with men. She discussed one of those relationships in her book and it also made singer, Jackie Wilson have to step in.
Here’s what Etta James wrote:
“A man called “The Pimp,’ which should have been a clue, was my first serious boyfriend. I found his fast world fascinating. I met him in New York in 1962. He was an ex-heroin junkie. I first saw him hanging out at a after hours joint, acting slick and snorting coke. He was from Boston and loved calling himself a “Roxbury N**ger.” The Pimp was drop-dead handsome. He had that Don Juan look, thin mustache, dark bedroom eyes, and wavy hair. women loved him. He also had a reputation for violence. People said he killed his last girlfriend. They also said, at age 14, he killed a man. Sadly, these stories only excited me.”
“The Pimp satisfied me sexually, before long, sex and violent men were mixed up in my young mind. My friend John Lewis tried to warn me. As an ex-pimp, John knew the type. John told me the Pimp had a reputation for brutally beating women. I ignored John’s warning.”
Etta James
“One day, the Pimp came to my hotel suite, as soon as he entered, he started sniffing and asked me if I had another man in the room earlier? I told him no! He said, “You lying b**ch, he then punched me in the face and knocked me clear across the room. When I landed on the floor, I was within an arm’s length of my purse with the pistol inside. I went to grab it but the Pimp got to the purse before I did, he found the gun and went berserk, kicking and beating me all over the room.” After this violent episode, things cooled off between us. After a few months, we got back together.”
“One night, John, his girlfriend, and I were visiting singer Jackie Wilson. The Pimp tracked me down and was banging on Jackie’s door. After Jackie opened the door, The Pimp rushed towards me with his fists clenched. Jackie was a former Golden Gloves boxer, he got between us and kicked The Pimp’s ass. Before he left-a bloody and battered mess, he screamed, “Etta, if I ever see you again, I’m going to kill you.” You ain’t nothing but a Jackie Wilson groupie.”
“One day I returned home from shopping, the Pimp was waiting for me, he beat me within a inch of my life and afterwards, he screamed, “B**ch, go wipe the blood off.” When he fell asleep, I got my gun and stood over him, I pressed the trigger, lucky for him, he had taken the bullets out earlier.”
Geesh! Wilson turned into a real life “Rocky” and gave that dude the beatdown of a lifetime! That’s what friends are for though, and Etta was probably very grateful Wilson was there that day.
It’s hard not to wonder what it would have been like if social media existed back then. We would’ve seen these Old School icons in a totally different light, instead of seeing the ‘images’ their record labels and publicists put out to the world at that time. That would have been a great thing in our opinion…just sayin.’
