English bassist and singer Sid Vicious performs with the Vicious White Kids at Electric Ballroom, London in August 1978. (Aubrey Hart/Evening Standard/Getty Images)
Sid Vicious rose to fame as the Sex Pistols bass guitarist and vocalist, but on Feb. 2, 1979, he was found dead after an apparent heroin overdose at the age of 21. Look back at the rock icon's life and career.
Sid Vicious, born John Simon Ritchie, was the bass guitarist and vocalist of the Sex Pistols. On Feb. 2, 1979, Sid died at the age of 21 from an apparent heroin overdose—but it has also been speculated that he killed himself, leaving a suicide note.
The Sex Pistols members Paul Cook, left, Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten and Steve Jones were the subject of a rockumentary called “The Filth and the Fury,” which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on Jan. 25, 2000.
In happier times, the Sex Pistols members Johnny Rotten, left, Steve Jones (signing the document), Paul Cook, Sid Vicious and their manager Malcolm McLaren signed a new recording contract outside Buckingham Palace in London in March of 1977.
The Sex Pistols performing live during their “Never Mind The Bans Tour,” in the U.K., on Dec. 19, 1977.
English punk rock group “Sex Pistols” took to the stage on Jan. 7, 1978, almost a year before Sid Vicious died.
Sex Pistols’ Sid Vicious, Johnny Rotten and Paul Cook rocked the stage during a concert in 1978.
Sid Vicious and his girlfriend Nancy Spungen posed for the cameras on Feb. 8, 1978. Spungen died later that year on Oct. 12, 1978, from stab wounds, and Vicious was a suspect. However, he died before the case could go to trial.
Nancy Spungen and Sid Vicious posed with Lemmy from Motorhead, who taught Sid how to play the bass.
English bassist and singer Sid Vicious performs with the Vicious White Kids at Electric Ballroom in London in August of 1978.
New York police escorted British punk rock musician Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols shortly before he was charged with murder in the stabbing death of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, at New York’s Chelsea Hotel on Oct. 13, 1978.
Sid Vicious was spotted walking with his attorney James Merberg, pictured here. Vicious was sent to jail for allegedly stabbing his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, and was released on $50,000 bail, posted by his recording company, Virgin Records.
Bassist Sid Vicious of the rock band the Sex Pistols poses for his mugshot after being arrested by police for allegedly murdering his girlfriend Nancy Spungen, on Dec. 8, 1978, in New York City.
The body of 20-year-old Nancy Spungen was removed from the Hotel Chelsea in New York after allegedly being stabbed by her boyfriend, Sid Vicious.
Anne Beverley, the mother of the late punk rock star Sid Vicious, sits in an ambulance outside the Sixth Precinct police station in New York on Feb. 2, 1979. Police had been questioning her about finding her son’s body when she was overcome and rushed to a hospital. Police said her son apparently died of a heroin overdose taken the night before, at a party given to celebrate his release from prison.
In this photo, Sid Vicious and his mother Anne arrive at Manhattan Supreme Court on 100 Centre St. Vicious pleaded innocent to the indictment charging him with murder and “depraved indifference to human life” in the stabbing death of his girlfriend, Nancy Spungen, at the Chelsea Hotel. He was released on $50,000 bail.
The front cover of the New York Daily News when news broke that Sex Pistols guitarist and vocalist Sid Vicious died.
On Feb. 2, 1979, police carried the body of punk rock singer Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols from an apartment in the Greenwich Village area of New York. Authorities said that Sid Vicious apparently died from an overdose of heroin he took at a party celebrating his release from prison the day before.
