Last month, Judas Priest frontman Rob Halford released his debut memoir, Confess. The autobiography saw the metal legend delve into his arrest for cruising a Venice Beach toilet back in 1992.
In a recent interview with Yahoo!, Halford recalled the incident. That saw the rocker arrested as part of a police sting operation.
“[I was doing] this thing that we call cottaging in the U.K.; it’s call cruising over here,” Halford recalled. “And some gay men choose to do this thing where you go to a bathroom and you try and have a little bit of fun with another guy that’s there for the same reason as you.
“The incident that we’re talking about happened to me on Venice Beach. I was living in Marina Del Dey at the time, and for my daily exercise, I’d get on my bicycle and go all the way up to Malibu and back, with a stop in bathrooms.
He continued, “So I stopped, and I go in there. It’s quite busy. I’m sitting on the loo, as we call it, and this really hot guy comes in. He’s across from me and he’s washing his hands.
“There was a mirror, and he’s looking at me and kind of nodding and winking. And I’m, ‘Oooh.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘Hello.’ ‘Over here.’ And then he turns around and he looks at me and I look at him and he kind of acknowledges me and I acknowledge him. And then the next minute, he pulls out his badge and says, ‘You’re under arrest for indecent behaviour.'”
Rob Halford went on to detail the arrest, revealing that the police officers at the station were Judas Priest fans.
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“At the police station, I was still chained to the bench. We were all chained to the bench. And I saw these feet walk past me, and this guy pulls my baseball cap off. And he goes, ‘Rob.’ I go, ‘Yes.’ He goes, ‘What are you doing here?’ I’m, like, ‘I’ve done something really dumb and stupid.’ ‘Come with me.’ So internally, I’m thinking, ‘Oh, great. I’m free.’ No. They put me in a cell by myself, and then for the next hour, every cop in the police department came by the little glass window [and went], yeah, Priest!”
“I didn’t get off with it,” Halford continued. “I paid a fine, which I should have; I was put on probation, which I should have; I pled guilty, which I should have.
“The police were really, really cool. ‘Cause you get the TMZ at the time calling all the police departments [and going], ‘You got any stuff?’ And they very, very courteously kept that out of the press.
“It’s something I have to talk about simply because it’s poignant. It’s kind of sad that I had to go to such extreme dangerous measures to get some kind of intimate physical contact.”
Confess arrived on September 29th, you can order it here.
