Alice Cooper has revealed that he once almost died onstage while performing one of his famous stunts. In an interview with EW, the 70-year-old musician recalled how one of his death-defying feats – hanging himself onstage – went wrong at Wembley Stadium in 1988.
The stunt was concepted by magician James Randi, which had Cooper attached to a harness that was attached to rafters by a thick piano wire.
For the simulation, the noose was above his neck, and for the most part, the rig had protected him.
That is until that one night.
“Everything has its stress limit and after doing so many shows, I never thought about changing the wire,” Cooper explained. “You know, I figured it’ll last forever.”
He continued, “The wire snaps. I could hear the rope hit my chin and in an instant I flipped my head back. That must’ve been a fraction of a second because if it caught my chin it would have been a different result. It went over my neck and gave me a pretty good burn.”
Cooper said he fell on the floor and “pretty much blacked out.”
Despite the near-death scare, the show went on – after he replaced the piano wire.
The rocker revealed that the risk of his stunts is part of putting on a successful show.
“When I go to the circus and there’s a guy in a cage with 12 tigers, there’s always a chance that one of the tigers didn’t get the message,” Cooper said. “When you see a guy on a tight wire, you know that there may be a second you witness a tragedy.”
He added that the danger is what he wanted in his own concerts: “I always wanted that in our show: What they’re seeing could be the last night of Alice Cooper.”
Alice Cooper appeared in last night’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live! alongside John Legend where he did not simulate any dangerous stunts.