By Caroline Sullivan
The Indianapolis Star | January 23, 1995
The recorded message on Gavin De Becker’s Los Angeles answering machine begins: “If you are calling regarding assessment of threats and safety hazards, press ‘1’ now…”
De Becker’s business is protecting celebrities from obsessive fans otherwise known in today’s parlance, as stalkers. The message goes on to say that De Becker rarely gives interviews—but then, he doesn’t need the publicity. Business is booming.
Although the best-known cases of stalking seem to involve Hollywood personalities (the most infamous incident was in the ’80s, when actress Rebecca Schaeffer was shot on her doorstep by a man claiming to be in love with her), the problem exists for musicians as well.
Many female stats have stories of being obsessively pursued by male fans.
Madonna has been repeatedly harassed by a man who says he is her husband—she has issued injunctions against him, but, heedless, he recently tried to break into her Los Angeles house—but pop stars don’t have to be internationally famous to attract unbalanced fans.
Germano harassessed
Indiana singer/songwriter Lisa Germano, former violinist with John Mellencamp and now solo recording artists, has a chilling tale of being followed for two years.
“I started getting letters from this guy about how God wanted me to be with him and all this weird stuff. Then, a while later, he turned up at John Mellencamp’s house. John got him arressted, but afterwards he went to John’s guitarist’s house and he was saying, ‘I know she’s here. God said she is,’ and he beat up the guitarist.
“Then he somehow got my phone number. The fear was everywhere—I was looking everywhere for him. I slept with a baseball bat near my bed, and I put a double lock on the bedroom door. If anyone knocked on my door that I didn’t expect, I had a can of Mace in my hand when I answered it. I told the cops, but they couldn’t care less.”
Germano finally confronted her fears by writing a song titled “A Psychopath.” Germano’s whispered vocal is layered over a taped conversation between an emergency-services operator and a woman trying to fend off an intruder outside her house. The song dominates her album, Geek the Girl.
“I haven’t heard from him since I wrote it,” she says cautiously.
Singer Anne Murrary has been stalked since the early ’70s by a Saskatchewan farmer who routinely violates her injunctions against him.
But the most bizarre stalking story is that of singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. Her this album, Fumbling Towards Ecstasy, is approaching platinum status, and her ascending star attracted Uwe Vandrei, who began following her around, deluging her with letters and flowers.
Then, several months ago, he launched a lawsuit against her, claiming that he inspired one of her songs, Possession.
“She profited from the wrongful use of the ideas, emotions and character described in the letters,” the lawsuit alleges, going on to demand profits from the record’s sales.
“I think he thought if he sued her, he’d be able to force a meeting,” says McLachlan’s publicist in Vancouver.
Just before Christmas, though, as the case proceeded, Vandrei died, apparently a suicide.
It seems strange that many more cases of erotomania, as disorders like Vandrei’s have been named, have not occurred in an overtly physical, sexy medium like pop.
It’s likely there are more, but the female victims are loath to speak publicly about it. Several well-known pop figures refused to be interviewed for this article, even anonymously.
Dr. Raj Persaud, a psychiatrist at the University of London, advises them not to confuse erotomania, in which the ill person believes he is loved by a person he has never met, with simple obsession.
About the latter he says, “It might irritate them if the celebrity talked about it the in press, but it’s also possible that if they thought they were becoming a nuisance they might stop.”
