Alice Cooper performs onstage at the Budweiser Stage on Saturday, Sept. 2, 2017 in Toronto, Canada. (Photo by Arthur Mola/Invision/AP)
Alice Cooper has been a major rock star and performer for decades. His “shock rock” persona has earned him a reputation for the bizarre over the years.
However, Cooper (born Vincent Damon Furnier) reserves his performance antics for the stage. In reality, he is a proud Christian who has been faithfully married to his wife Sheryl for over 40 years.
He wasn’t always content as a rock star. In a recent interview, Cooper opened up about the trial of his younger days as a musician and how he feels he may have died were in not for his faith in Jesus Christ. The “School’s Out For Summer” performer recounted a very scary day 37 years ago when he found himself throwing up blood.
“Everything that could go wrong was shutting down inside of me,” the legendary rocker recalled to Confidential. “I was drinking with Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix and trying to keep up with Keith Moon and they all died at 27.”
Cooper says he realized he was going to have to either quit drinking or die. After exiting a hospital where doctors diagnosed him as a “classic alcoholic,” he never had the desire to drink again.
The “School’s Out” singer credits his recovery to God.
“My wife and I are both Christian,” the 70-year-old performer explains. “My father was a pastor, my grandfather was an evangelist. I grew up in the church, went as far away as I could from it — almost died — and then came back to the church.”
Although many Christians may question the compatibility of rock n’ roll and the church, Cooper says he doesn’t see a conflict all and never has.
“There’s nothing in Christianity that says I can’t be a rock star,” he continued. “People have a very warped view of Christianity. They think it’s all very precise and we never do wrong and we’re praying all day and we’re right-wing. It has nothing to do with that. It has to do with a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Alice Cooper has been a cultural phenomenon since the 1970’s, and while he has never really stopped performing his “celebrity” has experienced numerous resurgences among new generations. The 1992 comedy Wayne’s World thrust him into the spotlight when he delivered a now-classic monologue on the origins of Milwaukee to superfans Wayne and Garth.
In the early 2000s, he took on the role of King Herod in the musical “Jesus Christ, Superstar”. Now Cooper will reprise that role in NBC’s live version of the famous Andrew Lloyd Weber musical.
Through it all, he maintains that his faith and his marriage have kept him grounded. He still reads his Bible every day, still attends church faithfully and claims he and his wife have been completely faithful to each other for their entire marriage.
“You know what, we have never cheated on each other,” Cooper told us. “First of all, marry the girl you are in love with. That’s the important thing. Don’t just marry the girl that you love.”
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