Who knew hard rocking Axl Rose was a diva? The Guns ’n’ Roses lead singer, who is currently touring with AC/DC, has become a pretty darn funny meme, but he’s not laughing.
According to Know Your Meme, the “Fat Axl Rose” meme has actually been around for a few years. It came about when some photos of Axl with some extra pounds surfaced. The pics were taken at a concert in Winnipeg, Canada back in January of 2010. The media took notice and a meme was born, using the pics – as well as some taken at the 2011 Rock in Rio show – to accompany parody lyrics of some of G’N’R’s biggest hits, like “Welcome to the Jungle,” “Paradise City” and “Sweet Child of Mine.” I don’t want to laugh, but I found myself giggling at some of them, especially “Welcome to the bakery/We’ve got pies and cakes”, “Sweet pie o’ mine” and “Used to love her/but I had to eat her.”
Needless to say, since Axl is back on the pop culture radar, the memes have returned and Axl is not amused. According to Torrent Freak, the 54-year-old singer recently issued a DMCA takedown notice to Google, Facebook and YouTube to remove the photos from the Winnipeg show. The notice read “Copyright image of Axl Rose. Please be advised that no permission has been granted to publish the copyright image so we cannot direct you to an authorized example of it.”
This isn’t the first time an artist has tried to scrub the Internet of unflattering photos. Back in 2013, Beyonce attempted to get some photos taken down, and birthed another pretty funny meme. And the queen diva herself, Barbra Streisand, actually started this back in 2003, when she tried to get photos of her Malibu home removed from the Internet. This had the opposite effect of bringing more attention to them. This whole phenomenon is now called the “Streisand effect” after her.
Axl invoked the “Streisand effect” big time by calling these memes out in the first place, but at least it’s making everybody pay attention to him one more time.
Photo credit: WENN.com, Getty Images
I had no idea these silly pictures existed, until I read about them now. Doubt I’m the only one. Think Axl, think!
Yep, yep, yep, yep. Someone would have saw hit, chuckled and moved on.
I think it’s mean, but I would ignore it. He’s only calling attention to it. People are cruel. I laughed at some of the titles, so I guess I’m no better.
He should never take off that hat.
Isn’t every picture of Axl Rose, by its very nature, unflattering? It IS Axl Rose, after all.
I thought he had a lovely face before he messed with it, I’m not sure what he was trying to improve or get rid of. I don’t think he was trying to look younger. Now he’s just another example of bad plastic surgery.
I agree. Back in the day, Axl Rose and Stephanie Seymour were pretty hot, in a kind of you know you shouldn’t be looking but you can’t help it sort of way. In the late 80s, early 90s, Axl Rose really boarder on being beautiful. He had so much energy and was really quite fascinating to watch.
Yeah, I thought he was straight-up beautiful during the Appetite For Destruction days.
I just googled young Axyl Rose, and he was quite good-looking. Maybe I’m crazy but in some (old) pictures he looks like Carrie Mulligan.
Hes always been a diva, and a complete a’hole. That’s why all the other GNR members left the band, they’d had enough of him.
On tour in the early 90’s he threw a fit when he was delayed getting a flight because all his vitamins had to be scanned. There are 2 recent accounts I can remember when he’s turned up late on stage and then walked off when the audience started throwing bottles.
I used to be a fan, though his gun obsession disturbed me, then when Stephanie Seymour took him to court for assault (she alleged he kicked her down the stairs) and his ex-wife Erin was subpoenaed to testify she also sued him for the years of abuse during their 4 yr relationship.
Wow, He sounds charming. I just stopped feeling sorry for him.
he’s a real winner, always has been.
so axl, please get ALL the pictures of your ugly mug scrubbed. much thanks, the internet.
I hadn’t heard about Stephanie, but I remember he was very abusive to Erin Everly. I still remember the photo of his garage door where he spray painted ‘sweet child of die’ and some other nasty things about her. He has a long history of bad behavior.
He’s not the one who painted that. I remember reading recently that it was some random graffiti person who did it, even Erin confirmed it wasn’t Axl. Not that it excuses any of his behavior, he’s still a douche.
The man was tw#%t back in the 80s. AAnd still a tw@#t. I lived and partied in LA back then. These are not good guys. Any of them. Hair metal is the only genre of music that I can no longer stand and makes my skin crawl as a result. Misogynistic, arrogant and musically banal.
Go away Axle.
I am defending Axl, but Seymour has her own issues.
Her marriage to Peter Brandt has been scandalous, and fraught with allegations of physical, and substance, abuse. Both of her sons are this way as well, and have terrible reputations. Guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.
Axl Rose was one of the hottest rockstar between the 80’s and the ’90s, but he is crazy and a woman abuser. Havingsaid that: he has always been a total diva, and a stage animal. And I’ve read him and AC/DC are kicking the a@s together.
I don’t know.
“Who knew hard rocking Axl Rose was a diva?”
Um, everyone?
Right?!?!?!
Yes, that is true. Axl even said that he has new musical material that he has presented to both his former Guns bandmates and Angus Young of AC/DC.
Oh god I feel their pain!
It’s like when a friend tags you in a pic on Facey with a greasy face with about 12 chins, slouched over, eyes looking crosseyed and looking like a thousand shades of hell times a thousand gazillion 😂😂😂
I hate getting tagged on fb. You can change your settings so that anything you get tagged in has to be approved by you before it can appear on your timeline.
I’m not on Facebook, but The Man is and I sometimes look on his account. A couple of weeks ago I went out with some friends for the first time in way too many years. We took loads of pics, and some were actually really nice. When I checked on Facebook I saw one of my friends had posted the least flattering ones of me. And of course everyone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years saw them. Awesome.
A “friend” of mine posted a pic of me from a 10K I did a month or so ago and I didn’t realize for a couple days that it was there because I’m never on FB. TERRIBLE.
So basically everyone who’s friends with me had two days to see the scariest pic ever…lol..I have a vein popping out of my neck and I’m grimacing. I look like a monster. Ugh.
Now I have my settings changed to approve of everything that gets posted on my wall. Lesson learned!
Never liked this guy or his voice for that matter. All the times he screwed over promoters and fans and now we should fall all over him? Nah
how vain get one get? it didn’t work for beYAWNce so why would Axl think it would work for him? Move along, bunch of narcissists.
There is a celebrity out there that had a dated and one would call an unflattering photo of them out there in said fanny pack, turtleneck and acid wash jeans. There was not talk of scrubbing, instead the said celebrity posted the meme on their social media. Sure jokes came at his expense, but just went with the flow. What happened, people were posting reenactment photos and he posted them for his millions of followers. Axl, take a page from The Rock. It is okay to laugh at yourself sometimes.
So all of them then?
That’s a lot of scrubbing.
I’ll just sit back and watch. The internet knows what to do.