Unsolved Mystery

Hey Katy, you’re site is great, I love all the work you do for the band! A question from one of the younger fans, I’ll be 19 this year! I also want to commend Nick, John and Roger for your outstanding abilities, you guys totally rock my world!

This is a question for Simon:

I had read a quote somewhere about Nick saying that you fell out a window in 1988, did you actually fall out a window? If so, what happened? With love from, Elizabeth xox

"Apparently, I did fall out of a window but it has, apparently, affected my memory and I remember it not at all, so all I have to go on are the various explanations and version of onlookers, passer's by etc. as to what actually happened. Would you like me to recount the more interesting ones?
I'll assume that's a yes."

Version 1. International rock star who wishes to remain anonymous

"I was in Paris with Simon in the summer of 19...something, I forget exactly when. We had been to Les Bains, a happening nightclub at the time. We both took a fancy to the same very sexy girl, Veronique I think her name was. She asked if we knew what a "ménage a trios" was, and by the early hours of the morning all three of us found ourselves in bed together at my apartment on the second floor of a building on a quiet street in the 10th arrondissment. I think Simon must have sobered up when the dawn broke, because while she and I were getting amorous, so to speak, for the second time that night, all of a sudden Simon opened his eyes and said "I don't think I'm enjoying this anymore" and climbed - butt naked out of the window overlooking the small neat garden at the rear of the building. Apparently he tried to make a jump to the tree outside but failed and ended up falling 20 feet or so to the gravel path below. When he came back in to get dressed, he was quite scratched up but didn't sustain any serious injury as I remember.”

Version 2. Dennis O'Regan, photographer.

"I was on tour with the Duran boys to take photos for a book in the late autumn of 1983. I remember we were in Japan, Kobe to be exact. They'd played a show that evening. Actually like all shows in Japan at the time, they had finished very early that evening; I think at about 6.30pm; in order for the kids, who were 99% young girls ... mad, to be able to get home after the show by public transport. They had security, or police , or something in the concert hall to "restrain" the audience - honestly the girls were allowed to scream, but not a lot else. If they so much as stood up, these Japanese guys would come and shout at them, even use rubber truncheons to make them sit in their seats. You can imagine the ensuing chaos; I mean I was in the employment riots in Dublin, which took place in the early '70s, but I never saw anything like the level of hysterical wet knicker frenzy that the boys managed to whip up that night.

Anyway, the tone of the evening was set. By 7.30pm Simon had started on the tequilas, a habit he'd picked up in the bars of Sydney earlier that year, and he was in a crazy mood. We'd just performed a "human sculpture" with 15 or so naked girls in Nick's bedroom; of course - he was taking the photos - They just loved to take their clothes off for the band - it's quite amazing when you think about it. In fact I've got to say right now, of all the bands I've ever been on the road with these guys enjoy themselves the most ... always busy, if you get my drift. A bit later on we were all in Simon's room on the 32nd floor, and completely out of the blue he picked me up by the jacket and the pants and just chucked me across the room at the plate glass window. Thank god I bounced off it. So there I am lying on the floor, semi-pissed and a little bit freaked out. Next thing I know Simon's charging across the room giving it a load of what sounds like some kind of Polynesian battle yell - probably something else he picked up in that Sydney bar I was telling you about - and he hits the glass, and he DOESNT bounce off it. With one almighty crash he smashes right through the glass. We're all stunned. We're all silent.

And then the banging starts up. Banging, banging, banging, on the door and on the wall and, it seems, on the ceiling, and incredible as it sounds on the floor underneath as well. Fucking loud, crazy BANGING. We're still all sitting there stunned, until Andy gets up and runs to the door and opens it. That's when the banging stops. And there in the doorway laughing and spluttering, almost crying his crazy beautiful head off, is Simon, barely coherent, just about able to get the words out "I fucking had you all there, didn't I!"

Don't ask me how he did it. I've spent years trying to figure it out. By rights he should've been meat on the pavement 32 floors below. Maybe he managed to catch something on this way through; maybe he landed on some kind of ledge we didn't see; maybe he's just lucky. I don't know. I wouldn't bother asking him either; he was so off his head that night that the hangover lasted for three days straight. And could he remember any of it? - Could he?”