There, in a pill-fused haze, Alig was deemed King of the Club Kids. Aligs death was the final chapter in a sordid, sensational and decidedly cautionary tale about striving to become famous in the Big Apple and ultimately succumbing to its excesses. Alig learned from mentors, including St. James, while rising in popularity and prominence in the national underground club scene. There, he met the boyfriend of artist Keith Haring, who introduced Alig to New York City nightlife. Afterwards, he and Riggs threw the box into the Hudson River. Florida Teacher Suspended After He Made White Students Act as Servants For Black Students, Who Was Abby Choi? Macaulay Culkin played Alig in the 2003 biopic Party Monster, which portrayed the Club Kid scene that he helmed, which culminated in the brutal death of Angel Melendez. Musto had previously reported on Alig's firing from The Limelight and noted the buzz about a missing club person. Last 6 Years of Michael Aligs life. [24] The following day, the New York Post's "Page Six" column ran a lead item about the murder mystery, citing Musto's reporting as well as a New York magazine piece quoting an evasive Alig. Alig told me a few years ago that he never thought hed live to see 50, so anything that came after that milestone was gravy. Cain and the Club Kids were caught in a messy battle with Aligs mother, Elke Blair, over who would keep his ashes. In 2016,I was assigned to profile Alig for Maer Roshans short-lived reboot of the queer lifestyle magazine 429, which is now defunct. According to the Toronto Sun, they temporarily stashed the body in a bathtub filled with ice before the dismemberment. Meanwhile, Alig became more and more addicted to drugs over time. [11], In 1988, Alig was hired by the owner of The Limelight, Peter Gatien. Alig, now 48 . Michael Alig . His 1996 killing of his friend and drug dealer Andre Angel Melendez cemented the Kids legacy with a horrifying coda, chronicled in James St. Jamess acclaimed book Disco Bloodbath and immortalized in a documentary and narrative film, both named Party Monster. I got turned into Cruella Deville [during the episode], but no one could please Elke, so Jason and I needed a final release, Cain said. 73,275, This story has been shared 51,653 times. Thanks for contacting us. He was finally being released, after serving 17 years for manslaughter, for the death and dismemberment of Andre "Angel" Melendez, after a drug-fueled argument one night in 1996. Alig's death is the final chapter in a sordid, sensational and decidedly cautionary tale about striving to become famous in New York and ultimately succumbing to its excesses. They also appeared on Donahue, Geraldo, and The Joan Rivers Show. Alig has also admitted that he was in the habit of urinating in the drinks. Im sure it was one of those Im on him too long and putting too much force. Unfortunately, much like the other clubbers around him, Alig was fueling his outrageousness with copious amounts of drugs. St James, Ernie Glam, Screamin' Rachael, DJ Keoki, JennyTalia (Jenny Dembrow), film director Eric Spade Rivas, Hollywood musician/painter/nightlife personality/film actress Ingrid LaLa, NYC musician/painter Joseph Arthur, NYC nightlife legend and mentor Steve Lewis, and many others attended Michael Alig's June 25, 2015 art event. "Before, it was, you know, it was like people's livelihoods were on the line they like built an industry out of me. In reality, he argued, the whole thing was a fairly bloodless affair they simply thought Melendez was unconscious, so they put him on a couch, where he asphyxiated. [31] On October 1, 1997, both pleaded guilty and were sentenced to 10 to 20 years. News confirmed in late December that the former club promoter, who served 17 years in prison, had died at the age of 54 . Alig in the visitor's room at the Emira Correctional Facility. We've received your submission. However, he could never leave drugs even during his term in jail and the last six years of his life after he was paroled in 2014. Due to the popularity of these events during the lockdown, NYC police investigated believing there was a real in person event when it was actually a virtual party. People stopped going out, and then when Warhol died, people stopped going out completely. In January 2017, Alig convinced NYC nightlife personality/musician Jason Chaos to curate and work Outrage! However, Alig, who reigned over the Manhattan club scene as a party promoter for Peter Gatien's immensely popular Limelight and Palladium dance clubs, was already infamous outside the city's lushly attired demimonde even before the murder. According toThe Advocate, rumor also had it that the killers injected Melendez with Drano. [14], Alig was paroled on May 5, 2014. He started off as a busboy at Danceteria in 1983 and . I didnt know it was for him.. He had so much heroin in his body, there was no way he wasnt going to die. A week before the June 25, 2015 art event, someone stole the box with the second middle pieces of the puzzle art invitation. He would also often scream for hours inside his pad, neighbors said. The overlap made me wary and a little queasy. Chaos told us that he and Blair made peace last month. which you can read via the Wayback Machine, Alig was arrested for smoking meth in public. In 2014, Alig . As Michael Alig puts it, his intention apart from self-promotion, of course was to help "other people who were having a hard time assimilating, like I was when I was growing up. He was a convicted killer who spent 17 years in prison for manslaughter after killing and dismembering his drug dealer. I had wanted to see Aligs place, and while it had confirmed my suspicions that it would function as a visual representation of a life in disarray, I couldnt believe that he let an actual journalist see it. He was known in his heyday as the self-proclaimed King of the Club Kids, a group of outrageously dressed, drug-fueled hedonists staging the most sought-after nightclub parties in the 1980s and early 1990s. The blog contained transcripts of phone conversations between Alig and St. James about Alig's experiences in prison. Silva said in the message that he was sleeping next to [Alig] when he died. And said, Im the one who called 911 and the one who was with him all day literally.. Blair first agreed to split his ashes with the Club Kids, but then pulled the plug, telling Page Six she feltbullied by Aligs longtime confidante Rachael Cain. Alig waffled between claiming to be off drugs and admitting to doing a bump here and there. The 54-year-old former scene fixture-turned-slay convict was discovered by an ex-boyfriend just before midnight in his Washington Heights pad, authorities said. An ex-boyfriend found Alig dead from an overdose on Christmas Eve. The party is officially over. While Alig fully admitted that the pair eventually chopped off the body's legs before disposing of it, he blamed the dissociation that came with their heroin use and said that he had terrifying PTSD-induced flashbacks about it. [39] From September 7, 2014, on, Alig and Glam hosted a YouTube comedy talk show titled "The Pee-ew". It seemed to me that Alig was still serving a sort of sentence, that the prison bars he spent 17 years behind were ultimately immaterial. [15], However, Musto recalls: "By the time Alig sent out a party invite joking about the murder, a lot of people wanted to kill him (especially since a source was floating a more premeditated version of the killing). [21] Alig disputed these claims, however, and cited the "Drano in the hypodermic needle" as one of the key false dramatizations in Disco Bloodbath and Party Monster. 3 min read. Club Kid Killer Michael Alig the famously flamboyant party promoter who ended up busted for murder was found dead on Christmas Eve of an apparent heroin overdose, officials said Friday. On June 25, 2015, Alig had his first and only art show event held in three separate art galleries in New York City in the LES area. His charisma and the combination of his outlandish getups and scandalous antics made him a popular figure in the late 1980s and early 1990s, as well as a talk show mainstay who was the de facto figurehead of both Gatien's club empire and the Club Kid scene in general. A mattress took up most of the kitchen, there was barely a footpath in a living room strewn with boxes and piles of clothing, and a broken dresser was positioned near the door so it was practically the first thing I laid eyes on. It was the first outlaw party that never got busted by the police, but sure got busted by the hurricane, she added. [5] He studied architecture there before transferring to the Fashion Institute of Technology. In fact, the real story might just be even more outlandish than the movie version. 73,275, This story has been shared 51,653 times. The crime happened on March 17, 1996, and the perpetrators were Michael Alig and his roommate, Robert "Freeze" Riggs. Michael told me he probably wasnt going to make it through the year. [42] An EP, also entitled What's In, was released. Its hard to separate the two. Instead, he was reportedly quite happy to letAlig to rule the Club Kid roost and had plenty of respect for him. As such, Party Monster's 2003 single-theater opening weekend raked in a measly $15,163, per Box Office Mojo. The Club Kids were out and about, and their open celebration of difference wasn't just a fringe thing, either. Michael Alig ripped through culture like an overly loud cackle at a party, and he went out with a whimper. He never got it back together. Here are the 10 times he raised my shackles with the most demented glee. According to The Advocate, Andre "Angel" Melendez had his similarities with his acquaintance, Michael Alig. Doesn't Recall Speaking With Mayor. As The VillageVoice tells it, Riggs brought the hammer down on Melendez's head, but Alig was the one who killed him by hitting him over and over. Theres an advantage to be had in writing about someone that you dont admireyou feel far less beholden to their feelings. According to Deadline, both Alig and Riggs pleaded guilty to manslaughter in 1996. The bathtub they used to store the body contained Drano, baking soda, and Calvin Klein Eternity. [4], Alig attended Grissom Middle School and Penn High School, where he was a straight-A student and graduated in the top 8% of his class. 51,653, This story has been shared 45,190 times. One of the most important aspects of Live Through This is that it illustrates that anyone can be affected by suicideand that includes people we may have difficult and/or hostile, complicated feelings toward. The night I went, attendance was sparse, a shadow of the some 5,000 people he could pack into Limelight during his heyday. "He seemed remorseful, but at the same time he was putting up this facade," Culkin said. On February 2, 2017, Alig was arrested for trespassing and smoking crystal meth in Joyce Kilmer Park in Concourse, outside the Bronx Supreme Court, at approximately 1:30a.m. The last time I saw him, a guy was knocking and asking for him. Alig was released on May 5, 2014. He was 54 years old. Some of MichaelAlig's friends even said that he had personally admitted to the crime. Even his duplicity was telling, and I put it all in the piece, which you can read via the Wayback Machine if you are so inclined. I felt no need to hedge regarding the state of his Upper West Side apartment, a disaster by his admission. On his release from prison, Emma Brockes . Alig soon dropped out of school and began working at Danceteria as a bus boy. Michael Alig, who served 17 years for the murder of Angel Melendez, says prison is the best place to do drugs "because you have no responsibility." Club Kid killer reveals prison's secret sex spots [25], Through September 1996, the police still had not questioned Alig about the murder; they were focused on his former boss and onetime business partner, Peter Gatien, wanting Alig to testify against him. In 2003, the movie Party Monster took a no-holds-barred look at New York City's club culture and its seedy, drug-fueled underbelly. While Melendez was unconscious, Riggs went to the other room; when he returned, he noticed a broken syringe on the floor. And even with the particulars, even keeping the despicable act that defined his legacy in mind, thats a shame because all waste is a shame. Several bags of a variety of drugs were recovered by detectives from the scene, which once again reflects his troubled life post his release from jail six years back. It alters your sense of time and, in this case, well say strength. He was one of the ringleaders of the Club Kids, a group of young New York City clubgoers who became a cultural phenomenon in the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to The Guardian, there are many versions of the exact circumstances surrounding Andre"Angel" Melendez's death, thanks to the inaccurate depictions in various pop culture works and exaggerations by both the media and the Club Kids. "He was a copycat, so we killed him," Alig spoke of Melendez. Then Alig grabbed a pillow and tried to smother him. Alig served 17 years in prison for killing Melendez (he pleaded guilty to manslaughter), and was released to much fanfare in 2014. I wasnt particularly surprised when, about a month after its publication, Alig was arrested for smoking meth in public (outside the Bronx Supreme Court building, no less). His club-era friend James St. James had written the book Disco Bloodbath: A Fabulous but True Tale of Murder in Clubland, which served as the basis for Party Monster, and the dual pieces of fiction had become the "official" version of the events in the minds of the public. Per The Guardian, the Club Kid scene started as an attempt to give people who had been outcasts in their own communities a place to belong. However, in a 2003 interview with ABC News, Culkin himself pointed out that the role of a club hell-raiser isn't quite as far-fetched for him as one might initially assume. In October 1997, Alig pled guilty to first-degree manslaughter. 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