The 50 Craziest Pop Stars Ever 2 thru 10

10. Ozzy Osbourne
Like your cuddly uncle — if your uncle bites the heads off bats
Case History: Having helped invent heavy metal with Black Sabbath, Ozzy has worked long and hard for his "prince of fucking darkness" moniker. His exploits include biting the heads off doves and bats, urinating on the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, and, when checking into a Betty Ford Clinic, asking for directions to the bar. He also reportedly wanted to open his Live Aid set with "Food Glorious Food," from Oliver.
Crazy Moment: After a five-day drinking binge in 1989, Osbourne says that voices ordered him to kill his wife, Sharon. He tried to strangle her, saying, "We've decided you've got to go."
He's So Crazy: "Of all the things I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

9. Ol' Dirty Bastard
Ol' Dirty Bastard by name. Complete lunatic by nature
Case History: The Wu-Tang Clan's loose cannon. He bum-rushed the 1998 Grammys, grabbing the mic from Shawn Colvin to announce that "Wu-Tang is for the children." In 1999, when he was caught with 20 bags of crack, he asked police to make them "disappear." In November 2000, he was apprehended while waiting at a McDonald's drive-through and packed off to jail on cocaine-possession charges.
Crazy Moment: On trial for drug offenses in January 2000, he called the female district attorney a "sperm doctor."
He's So Crazy: "Remember the Indian who sold Manhattan to the white man? That's my great-great-grandfather."

8. Euronymous
Human-brain-eating Norwegian death-metaler
Case History: A big noise in Norway's church-burning black-metal scene. Oystien Aarseth changed his name to Euronymous as his band, Mayhem, emerged in the mid-'80s. After bandmate Per Yngve Ohlin — whose nickname was "Dead" — killed himself with a shotgun, Euronymous found the body; before calling the police, he picked up a camera and took some postmortem photos. In 1993, following a spat with fellow metaler Varg "Count Grishnackh" Vikernes, Euronymous was stabbed more than 25 times. "I piss on his grave," said the Count before being sentenced to 21 years in prison for the murder.
Crazy Moment: Euronymous ate a piece of Dead's brain and used pieces of the skull as jewelry.

7. Syd Barrett
Acid-fried Pink Floyd legend
Case History: Barrett was central to the original Pink Floyd lineup, but he hated fame, and a diet of double-dipped LSD sugar cubes helped give him a nervous breakdown. Burned out, he forgot the words and the music while playing the British TV show Top of the Pops; later, tripping again, Barrett repeated the same chord throughout his final Floyd gig. He spent the final decades of his life as a recluse in rural England, before expiring in 2006.
Crazy Moment: He once appeared onstage with Mandrax pills crushed into a Brylcreem he had put in his hair.

6. Britney Spears
America's favorite sweetheart croons America's favorite cry for help
Case History: Even before her I do/I don't to hometown pal Jason Alexander (never mind Fed-Ex), Spears had been regularly frightening her handlers with Girls Gone Wild antics. Jell-O shots and table dancing graduated to TV breakdowns and panty-free good times with role model Paris Hilton. Nothing could have prepared her fans for the self-inflicted shearing that left her looking like a cross between G.I. Jane and the dude from Powder, and even high-powered lawyers representing her in a sideshow/custody battle with Kevin Federline jumped ship in early '08. Undaunted, she has proven capable of feeding the tabloids with shockers on an almost daily basis. This story is developing, and she is poised to move up a few crazy pegs on this list...
Crazy Moment: Her drunken 55-hour marriage to Jason Alexander? Her sober marriage to Kevin Federline? Her January, 2008 refusal to return custody of her children to Fed-Ex'es bodyguard, resulting in a paramedic-assisted gurney ride to a local hospital? It's a tough call.
She's So Crazy: "I get to go to lots of overseas places, like Canada."
MORE: Britney Spears' artist gallery

5. Sly Stone
The maddest funkateer on earth, and elsewhere, too
Case History: Sylvester Stewart practically invented funk, but his dazzling highs were followed by an endless, cocaine-induced low. Even in 1971, his sex-and-drugs regimen was so intense that his label had to tempt him with $1 million in cash to complete an album. Stone once flew to London from Rotterdam 10 minutes before a concert, claiming he was going shopping and would be back in time for the show. Futile bouts of rehab came at the end of '70s; by then, Stone had taken to carrying a gun.
Craziest Moment: While making There's a Riot Going On, he made Bobby Womack play for six days without sleep.
He's So Crazy: George Clinton has said of him, "Sly has done so much that he'll never fully land on planet earth again."

4. Whitney Houston
Makes Bobby Brown look like the sane one
Case History: Even Houston's drug-gobbling ex-hubby, Bobby Brown, must look at her and think, Now she's crazy. Long rumored to be suffering from cocaine and heroin addictions, she denied taking drugs even after she was booted from the 2000 Academy Awards for playing an imaginary piano. In 2001, after Houston was a no-show at the second night of Michael Jackson's 13th-anniversary gala, her publicist issued a statement denying that she had died.
Craziest Moment: Fleeing to Israel to claim honorary Jewishness.
He's So Crazy: "I make too much money to ever smoke crack."

3. Axl Rose
Deranged G n'R singer and topiary fan
Case History: Rose developed a loathing for authority as a child after his stepfather hit him for singing along to Barry Manilow's "Mandy." Despite achieving global rock hegemony with 1987's Appetite for Destruction, all was not well in this redneck intellectual's jungle: He claimed Courtney Love tried to possess him at 1993's MTV Awards, and he's still working on the follow-up to G n'R's album of punk covers, The Spaghetti Incident?
Craziest Moment: After marrying Erin Everly in 1990, Rose bought a house in the Hollywood Hills and had two topiary elephants delivered by helicopter. The couple never moved into the property.
He's So Crazy: "I'm trying to have a happy life here — why do I keep getting in my own way with it? What's going on here?"

2. Brian Wilson
"Good Vibrations"? Was he being ironic?
Case History: In 1966, Wilson prepared for the Beach Boys' Smile sessions by packing $2,000 worth of hash, along with LSD and prescription amphetamines. He built a sandpit in his house, instructed his orchestra to wear toy fireman helmets — and then started hearing voices and feeling suicidal. After hospitalization, Wilson gorged on pills, steaks and cigarettes and ballooned to 300 pounds. Terrified of water, he stopped bathing. He spent three years in bed convinced that Phil Spector was coming to shoot him. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, manic depression and brain damage in the early '80s.
Craziest Moment: Meeting some youngsters backstage in 1970, Wilson introduced himself with "I'm Brian." "We know," one replied. "We're your children."
He's So Crazy: "There are a myriad of drug songs on the pop music market today," Wilson told the British music magazine Melody Maker in 1966. "I don't know which they are."