One of the best things about being famous is that you can make the most outrageous demands of people, and they’ll usually do it.

When Sharon Stone (DVDs) makes a movie, she wants a deluxe motor home with air conditioning, heating, bed, private bathroom, shower, TV, VCR, refrigerator, telephone, stove, couch, stereo, and cellular fax machine.

J-Lo (DVDs/CDs/books) likes everything in her dressing room to be white. Christina Aguilera (DVDs/CDs/books) demands police escorts to and from shows, because the poor lamb doesn’t like traffic. And then there’s Mariah Carey (DVDs/CDs/books) who like Cristal champagne. And bendy straws to drink it through.

So what about The Beatles (DVDs/CDs/books), the hugest recording artists of all time? They must have been able to get whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted, right?

According to The Smoking Gun, who have published a 40 year-old rider
of theirs, The Beatles made the most preposterous demands of their
promoters. They wanted a hi-fi system with speakers. Not for their
dressing room, though. So the audience could hear them play! How dare they!

And microphones! They actually wanted four microphones to sing into. Disgraceful! That’s one microphone each!

Ringo, he was the biggest diva of them all. Get this – he wanted a
platform for his drum kit! The ground isn’t good enough for Mr Ringo
Starr, oh no.

And their dressing room demands put even Sharon Stone to shame. They
wanted electricity! And water! Fame does strange things to people’s
egos, that’s for sure. Electricity and water indeed. And mirrors! Mirrors!

hecklerspray was planning a full Beatles reunion for next year, using cutting-edge cryogenic cloning genetic technology to bring John and George back from the grave. But now we’ve seen what they’ll expect for their shows, we’ve changed our minds.

[story by Stuart Heritage]