Rock Star Deaths and Bic Lighters: The Myth and the Facts

There are a lot of myths about rock and roll, allow me to clear up one I just discovered! (Thanks to Ashlee). I saw this image on facebook and automatically thought "Wow cool." The screen capture from Tumblr reads... "All these famous, semi-god motherfuckers were all left handed and all died at the age of 27 and all their autopsies reported that a white bic lighter was found in their pockets."

Sounds neat, right? Only if it were true! A bit of quick research will tell you that bic lighters weren't even around until 1973, and all of those folks (except Kurt) died before 1973. Then there is of course Snopes that verifies this story as false. You can also easily find Kurt Cobain's crime scene photos which show no white bic lighters. According to my research, there is no evidence of *any* of these folks having a white bic lighter on them when they died.

This story is just that; a story. A classic example of a rock n roll related myth.

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