Read this item and tell me if it’s real or if it’s from that satirical “newspaper” The Onion
Sex, Drugs and Premature Death
Study Finds Rock Stars Die Earlier Than Ordinary Citizens
LONDON, Sept. 4 — Living fast and dying young has long been part of rock-and-roll lore.
And now there are statistics that affirm the image, according to a study released Tuesday.
Researchers at Liverpool John Moores University, whose report appeared in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, studied a sample of North American and British rock and pop stars and concluded they are more than twice as likely to die a premature death as ordinary citizens of the same age.
The team studied 1,064 stars from the rock, punk, rap, R&B, electronic and new age genres in the “All Time Top 1,000” albums published in 2000. They compared each artist’s age at death with that of European and U.S. citizens of similar backgrounds, sex and ethnicity.
If you guess “real,” you win the prize!
This item appeared in the print edition of The Washington Post on Wednesday, September 5, 2007.
Now, if I could just figure out how to get money for a “study” involving fruity drinks and lying on the beach and whether or not these activities reduce stress I’d be a happy camper indeed.