So, we know this sounds crazy, but it came directly from George Clinton’s mouth that he hid a lit crack pipe from the President’s daughter and the secret service! While it’s no secret that our man, George, was a wild dude back in the day, this particular Clinton incident is one we would have NEVER called in a million years.
Basically it went like this: ‘Clinton meet Clinton.’ That’s the former first daughter (of former President Bill Clinton), Chelsea Clinton, meeting George “P-Funk” Clinton. Bill and Hillary Clinton’s daughter was a huge fan of George Clinton (now that’s a whole ‘nother story) and it all went down during the Centennial Olympics.
Here’s the story according to Rolling Stone:
It’s July 24, 1996 and George Clinton is performing at Atlanta’s House of Blues with the P-Funk All Stars, an evolving clique comprised of members of Parliament-Funkadelic and anyone Clinton feels like adding to the mix.
Clinton is in the band’s dressing room before the show getting ripped as he had done hundreds of times over the previous 15 years.
When Chelsea Clinton came backstage that night with a coterie of Secret Service agents, she joked with the funkmaster about having a food fight. He dissuaded her, not wanting to get shot down by an overeager fed. While posing for a photo with Chelsea, George realized at the last moment that he should probably conceal the crack pipe he was holding, so he just made a fist around it: “It was hot as a motherfucker, burning my hand up, but it worked – the picture, without a crack pipe in sight, was in People magazine.”
Here’s the infamous photo of George clutching a hidden, lit crack pipe behind his back standing next to Chelsea Clinton:
George was NO joke!
One thing about him, he never sang songs about being in love with crack cocaine, nor acid (which he said he was also addicted to back then). But of course we’re talking about George Clinton, so we all know he and the rest of P-Funk stood up loud and proud for their love of weed and even a little alcohol. However, he stayed away from singing about the rock…unlike today’s hip hop artists, who blatantly brag about being “in love with the coco” (cocaine) on mainstream radio. Nowadays, when an artist proudly boasts his love for cocaine and poppin’ mollies (a mixture of crystal-meth, cocaine, and opiates), valiums, Xanax, etc. in his RADIO single, it gets him a chart-topping hit and that’s dangerous…but I digress.
Today, George is declared clean now. In his book he talked about his ‘getting high’ days. At 77 years young, he’s happy, healthy and active because he kicked a three-decade addiction to crack cocaine – a major step towards his win. Not only does he talk about getting clean, but shedding all of his bad-boy image and about battling it out in court with his former to earn the rights to his music:
“Fighting all of these court cases had completely drained me physically,” he says. “I had fun catching them (the lawyers) off guard because they were thinking I was still a crack-head! (laughing) It worked. I feel good. I look good. I’ve lost about 85 pounds.” […] The crux of the lawsuit – reclaiming the rights to his back catalog – is still unresolved, but he said he’ll continue to fight, even if it’s for the rest of his life.
Like we always say, there’s a lot that can be learned from the lives of our favorite Old School artists and George Clinton’s evolution into the man he is today, is a beautiful thing to witness.
-ILoveOldSchoolMusic, Old School news with a new point of view
