He made the sneer famous and along the way became one of the most important characters in the English punk movement. He became an MTV media darling, and it was impossible to turn on the television in the mid-'80s and not see Idol's leathered fist raised in glorious defiance.

Now Idol--born William Michael Albert Broad on November 30, 1955--writes about his life as a musician and a video star in his new autobiography. His memoir also reveals that his life was fueled by drugs and alcohol; that his childhood was a transient one; and that success breeds monsters, inside and around you.

Here is a brief excerpt about a night in the life of Billy Idol:

We repaired to our hotel and downed more pills. Before long, I passed out in my bed. When I came to, it was nighttime and Harry had gone out, leaving me with two hookers. I became enraged, and with all the power I could muster through the workouts I'd been doing for a year and a half, I picked up the five-foot log that was serving as a table and threw it through the glass sliding doors that filled an entire wall of the room. When the hotel owner saw it in the morning, it took $20,000 to calm him down and stop him from calling the police. We decided it was best to get out of dodge, or in this case, Pattaya, and head back north to Bangkok.