Who was Nancy Spungen and how did she die? Murder case explored ahead of Hulu's Pistol premiere

Nancy Spungen was an icon from the 70s' punk rock scene, and someone who most parents would warn their children about. English punk rock band The Sex Pistols' bassist Sid Vicious, originally John Simon Ritchie, and Spungen initiated their romance in 1977, not long before the latter was found dead at the Chelsea Hotel in New York in 1978.

Dropping out of college and moving to New York, she reportedly made her way to the top of the emerging punk crowd, ultimately developing her abusive and often violent relationship with Vicious in 1977 after traveling to London. Spungen and Vicious built a reputation travelling through the UK and USA and later on (after the band broke up) as a pair.

FX network's upcoming limited series Pistol will drop on Hulu this May 31, reviving and depicting the legacy of The Sex Pistols, who, at the forefront of the punk movement, introduced their revolutionary music to the world.

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Who was Nancy Spungen?

Born to a middle-class family in Philadelphia in 1958, Nancy Spungen was raised Jewish and had a complicated childhood, and was said to be outrageously abusive.

After Nancy was brutally murdered in a New York hotel, her mother, Deborah Spungen, wrote a memoir titled And I Do Not Want To Live This Life: A Mother's Story Of Her Daughter's Murder. In the memoir, Deborah called the punk star a difficult child, describing her often abusive and physically violent relationship with her siblings.

Reports state that Spungen was diagnosed with schizophrenia as a teenager and spent time in a psychiatric institution. At 17, she briefly attended the University of Colorado before dropping out and moving to New York City in 1975, at the peak of the punk movement and heroin epidemic.

In an interview with New York magazine, photographer Eileen Polk, who was acquainted with Nancy Spungen, disclosed that,

"She was blatantly honest about it: She brought drugs for the bands. In order to be a groupie you had to be tall and skinny and have fashionable clothes…. And then here comes Nancy."

She added,

"She’s not trying to be cute or charming. She wasn’t telling people she was a model or a dancer. She had mousy brown hair and she was a bit overweight. She basically said ‘Yeah, I’m a prostitute and I don’t care.'"

In 1977, Nancy moved to London, following rock band members of The Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunder and Jerry Nolan, and met Sid Vicious, The Sex Pistols' bassist, for the first time.

In 2009, The Sex Pistols' manager Malcolm McLaren told The Daily Beast that,

"Nancy…taught Sid all about s*x and drugs and the lifestyle of a New York rocker."

Although the two were inseparable, the rest of The Sex Pistols' members allegedly despised her for her evidently aggressive and intimidating behavior. According to reports, The Heartbreakers manager, Leee Childers, said:

"[S]he was a junkie, a drug supplier and an all-around lowlife. … She was a very, very, very, very, very, very bad influence on people who were already a mess. She was a troublemaker and a stirrer-upper."

In January 1978, The Sex Pistols broke up after their last tour performance, allegedly due to Vicious' addiction to drugs and Spungen, a few months after which the couple moved to the Chelsea Hotel in New York, where 20-year-old Nancy Spungen was found dead in October the same year.

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How did Nancy Spungen die?

According to several reports, Nancy Spungen's body was found stabbed to death in a Chelsea Hotel room in New York City where she was residing with her partner Sid Vicious, a former member of The Sex Pistols. Spungen was stabbed in the stomach and bled to death in the bathroom.

Reports state that Nancy Spungen was murdered after a night of hard partying with Vicious, as investigators found the unconscious artist in the hotel hallway with significant amounts of drugs in his system.

Although Vicious initially admitted to murdering Spungen, he subsequently withdrew his statement and died of a heroin overdose about four months after the incident, at the age of 21.

As per reports, although Nancy Spungen's murder remains a mystery to all till date, several theories state that the 20-year-old was murdered in a drug-deal-gone-wrong. Some even state that she killed herself for a dramatic flair, ruling it a suicide.

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Pistol will provide a glimpse at the 70s' punk rock era, The Sex Pistols, and those involved in several scandals that followed the punk rock band before and after their break-up in 1978.

All 6 episodes will drop on Hulu this Tuesday, May 31, 2022.