October 28, 2025
by Carla Hay
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund
Culture Representation: The documentary film “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” features a predominantly white group of people (with one African American) talking about the life and career of British rock star Billy Idol.
Culture Clash: Billy Idol (whose birth name is William Broad) found fame first with the pop-punk band Generation X and later achieved greater success as a solo artist in the 1980s, but his life was troubled by drug addiction, messy love affairs, a dysfunctional family, and career lows.
Culture Audience: “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of Billy Idol, 1980s rock music, and documentaries about celebrities who have longevity in showbiz.
As a documentary, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is essentially a cinematic update of Billy Idol’s 2014 memoir, with some added perspectives and a few new revelations. It’s meaningful in some areas and shallow in other areas. Although the movie’s title is attention-grabbing, this title won’t age well when Billy Idol is actually dead. It’s a mostly conventional and solidly made documentary that will be eye-opening only to people who know almost nothing about Idol.
Directed by Jonas Åkerlund, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” has a title that refers to the many near-death situations that Idol has experienced, including drug overdoses in the 1980s and a 1990 motorcycle accident that caused him to get several broken bones. Idol (whose birth name is William Broad) has candidly talked about a lot of his past misdeeds and his recovery from drug addiction in many interviews over the years (such as his 2001 episode of “Behind the Music”) and in his 2014 memoir “Dancing With Myself.” “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” (which had its world premiere at the 2025 Tribeca Festival) has the same confessions, except it has more people from Idol’s life giving their points of view.
Idol (who was born in Stanmore, England, on November 30, 1955) grew up in a middle-class home. His mother Joan Broad was a homemaker. His father William Broad Sr. was a salesman. Idol has as a sister named Jane Broad, who is interviewed in the documentary. Joan (who died in 2020, at the age of 92) is also interviewed in the documentary, which is an indication of how many years it took to make this film. William Broad Sr. died in 2014, at the age of 90.
In the documentary, Idol describes his father as “a very reserved salesman” who didn’t approve of Idol wanting to be a rock singer. Idol quips, “I’m probably a glorified salesman. The only difference is I make my own product.” Jane Broad has this to say about Idol’s late-teen years: “There was a year or two when my dad didn’t speak to Billy. Billy was going through a phase that my dad didn’t understand.” Idol says much later in the documentary that his father eventually accepted Idol’s career choice after Idol became an affluent rock star, but his father and other family members were very troubled by Idol’s drug addiction.
Joan recalls Idol’s first attempt to look like a rock star was very different from the spiky-haired, bleach-blonde punk that has been his image for decades: “He had John Lennon specs and long hair in those days. He looked terrible.” Idol describes himself as being an average student in school who deliberately didn’t apply himself to reach his full potential because he was interested in things other than school. A famous story about how Idol got his stage surname was that one of his school teachers wrote an evaluation of him that described him as “idle.”
Idol came of age when the punk scene in England was thriving, and he wanted to be part of the action. He says his parents were horrified that he decided to drop out of college to join a punk band. In 1976, after a brief stint as the guitarist for a band named Chelsea, he became the lead singer of Generation X, a band that mixed the attitude of punk with pop-friendly rock songs. Gene October, the former lead singer of Chelsea, is interviewed in the documentary. October is credited with advising Idol to wear contact lenses instead of glasses and to change Idol’s hair color and image into being a sneering blonde punk.
Although some people dismissed Generation X as a pretty-boy punk band because of Idol’s good looks, the group managed to gain popularity because of its live shows. A record deal with Chrysalis Records soon followed. From 1976 to 1981, Idol was a member of Generation X, which released three studio albums when the band existed: 1978’s “Generation X,” 1979’s “Valley of the Dolls” and 1981’s “Kiss Me Deadly,” which was actually Generation X’s fourth recorded album. The band’s third recorded album was shelved and released 17 years after Generation X broke up: the 1998 album “K.M.D. – Sweet Revenge.” The “Generation X” and “Valley of the Dolls” albums were modestly successful in the United Kingdom, but “Kiss Me Deadly” and “K.M.D. – Sweet Revenge” were flops.
The Who guitarist/songwriter Pete Townshend gives an interview in the documentary, where he talks about seeing Generation X perform at the Roxy nightclub in London, early in Generation X’s career. “They were really brash and confident and charismatic,” Townshend remembers. “At the Roxy, there was that sense that people were coming there to learn to be punks.”
Idol says that the British punk rock pioneers the Sex Pistols were huge influences on him and Generation X. The documentary has interviews with former Sex Pistols lead guitarist Steve Jones and former Sex Pistols drummer Paul Cook, but their brief interview clips don’t have much information to add. Jones says he remembers when Idol was in a punk band called the Bromley Contingent. Cook says about England’s punk scene in late 1970s: “All these bands came from out of nowhere.” The documentary doesn’t mention that Jones, Cook, Idol, and former Generation X band member Tony James became on an on-again/off-again band called Generation Sex, beginning in 2018.
Generation X is mostly remembered for being the band that originally recorded 1981’s “Dancing With Myself,” a song that Idol co-wrote after seeing a guy in a Tokyo nightclub dancing with his reflection in a mirror. Idol re-recorded and released the song as a Chrysalis Records solo artist on his 1981 EP “Don’t Stop,” and it became one of Idol’s signature hits. “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is the only documentary to have interviews with Idol and his former Generation X bandmates James (bass) and Derwood Andrews (lead guitar), who are each interviewed separately.
James, who used to be in the band Chelsea with Idol, says that there were two factions in Generation X. Idol and James were Generation X’s chief songwriters, who bonded because they were both from middle-class backgrounds. Lead guitarist Andrews and drummer Mark Laff were from working-class backgrounds and bonded with each other. Because Idol and James were the main songwriters for Generation X, they wielded most of the power in the group. Andrews and Laff left Generation X in 1979 because of creative differences and power struggles in the band.
Idol admits in the documentary: “I hijacked Generation X, really. That last Generation X album is the first Billy Idol solo album, really.” James says there was another reason why the band eventually broke up in 1981: “Heroin made us drift apart.” James says when he first met Idol, Idol didn’t smoke, drink alcohol, or do drugs, but that changed quickly. James comments, “I think he felt a pressure from people to be Billy Idol, to be credible.”
Brendan Bourke, a former Chrysalis Records executive who worked closely with Billy Idol in the 1980s, tells a story in the beginning of the documentary about how he saw two different sides of Idol when he first met Idol in 1981. Bourke remembers picking up Idol at John F. Kennedy Airport after Idol decided to relocate to New York City as a solo artist. Bourke says that Idol was very quiet but became very different when Idol was in his full Billy Idol “rock star” persona. “He wasn’t Billy Idol until he was coked up,” says Bourke. “The alcohol and the drugs fueled that persona.”
Idol went public years ago about his drug problems. He says that although he abused many drugs in his life, heroin was his biggest addiction. It was an addiction he battled for most of the 1980s. He overdosed on heroin multiple times. In the documentary, Idol describes a 1984 overdose where he “turned blue.” He remembers the people who were with him at the time brought him up to the building’s roof to stay conscious and didn’t want to call for medical help because they were afraid it would turn into a public scandal that would ruin Idol’s career.
Idol says that when he started doing heroin, many other people in the music scene were also doing heroin. Idol comments that he and other heroin users he knew didn’t think at the time that heroin was very dangerous, and they were using heroin to get into a different mindset. Idol comments, “You think, ‘Maybe [heroin] will unleash something.'”
Former Generation X band member James says that Idol’s heroin addiction started around the same time that Idol got romantically involved with British dancer/choreographer Perri Lister, who would become the mother of their son Willem Broad, born in 1988. Lister (who appeared in some of Idol’s videos, such as 1982’s “White Wedding” and 1984’s “Eyes Without a Face”) had a tumultuous relationship with Idol from 1980 to 1989. Idol (who has never been married) and Lister were living in Los Angeles at the time of their final breakup.
Lister is interviewed in the documentary but doesn’t admit to any role in Idol’s drug addiction. She describes him as “the love of my life,” but says they both cheated on each other during their on-again/off-again relationship. Lister says that Idol was much more jealous and more controlling than she was, and the breaking point for her was when he continued to date other women after the birth of Willem. She also describes Idol as having two sides to him and says his “demon side” would come out when he was in the midst of drug binges.
Much of “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” covers the typical “height of success” and “debauched excess” stories that are in many celebrity documentaries. As many people already know, Idol became a huge star as a solo artist and had his biggest hits in the 1980s, including “Dancing With Myself,” “Eyes Without a Face,” “Rebel Yell,” “To Be a Lover” and his cover version of “Mony Mony.” Idol’s last big hit album was 1990’s “Charmed Life,” which spawned the hit single “Cradle of Love.” He was one of the artists who became synonymous with the early years of MTV (which launched in 1981), as their mutual popularity was fueled by a lot of media exposure and the music videos that MTV used to have in heavy rotation.
At the time, Idol’s drug addiction was an open secret in the music industry but was kept well-hidden from the general public. His biggest public controversies had to do with a few of his music videos—for example, “Dancing With Myself,” which featured exploding zombies, was at one point considered too violent for MTV—and his reputation for being a promiscuous playboy. Idol freely admits that he was living like a sex addict and makes no apologies for it, but he doesn’t go into explicit details in the documentary.
He’s more forthcoming about his drug addiction and tells a story about relapsing during a trip to Thailand, where he says he caused $75,000 in hotel damages. Idol says he briefly cleaned up his illegal drug use after his 1990 motorcycle accident, but it took him many years after that to get clean and sober from heroin and cocaine. His family members tried to help as much as they could, but Idol says the decision to quit and recover has to start with the person who has the addiction. He says he’s quit hard drugs in 2003, but he still admits to smoking marijuana on a regular basis.
Idol also says he’s at peace with his failed attempts to become a movie star. Because of his motorcycle accident, he lost out on playing the T-1000 villain role in 1991’s “Terminator 2: Judgment Day” (a role that went to Robert Patrick), while Idol’s role as Jim Morrison’s friend Cat in 1991’s “The Doors” movie was drastically reduced from being a significant supporting role to a glorified cameo. Idol talks about parting ways with manager Bill Aucoin (who was Generation X’s manager from 1980 to 1981, and who was Idol’s manager from 1981 to 1986) because Idol blames Aucoin for ruining Idol’s chance to have the starring role in the movie adaptation of author Nik Cohn’s 1975 “King Death” fantasy novel, a story about an assassin who becomes a famous entertainer.
Idol claims that Aucoin was addicted to smoking crack cocaine and took the “King Death” movie away from a major studio, in order to make “King Death” an independent film, but the movie never got made. Idol says, “After that, Bill Aucoin disappeared from my life.” (Aucoin died in 2010, at age 66.) Freddy DeMann became Idol’s next manager, but he didn’t last long as Idol’s manager. DeMann says in the documentary: “I knew Billy had severe drug problems, and that’s probably why I was called in.” No one in Idol’s current management team is interviewed in the documentary.
Idol also briefly comments on his 1993 “Cyberpunk” album being a bomb, by saying that it was an album that was ahead of its time in predicting what would become the Internet’s massive influence on society. Idol changed his hairstyle to short dreadlocks for his 1993 “No Religion” tour to promote the “Cyberpunk” album, but he changed it back to his signature spiky hair after the album flopped, and he’s kept that same hairstyle ever since. Idol didn’t release a new studio album after “Cyperpunk” until 2005’s “Devil’s Playground.” “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” has some occasional comments and clips of Idol’s music released since “Cyberpunk,” but the documentary knows that most of the public’s interest in Billy Idol revolves around his 1980s career peak.
Steve Stevens, Billy Idol’s longtime guitarist who became his best-known songwriting collaborator, is interviewed in the documentary, but there’s not nearly enough of him in the movie. It’s perhaps the movie’s biggest flaw: There’s not enough information in “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” about Idol’s songwriting or how he made his hit albums. Unfortunately, the quotes from Stevens that are used in this documentary are utterly forgettable. Keith Forsey, the music producer who worked with Idol for most of the 1980s, is interviewed, but he doesn’t have much information that’s new or insightful.
The documentary’s updated information includes Idol discovering in 2023 that he has a son named Brant Broad, who was born from a brief fling that Idol had with a fan in the mid-1980s. Idol’s daughter Bonnie Blue Broad, whom Idol fathered with another fan during Idol’s 1984 “Rebel Yell” tour, discovered Brant through a DNA test. The end of the documentary shows Idol with all three of his children and being a doting grandfather to the children of Brant and Bonnie.
Celebrities who are interviewed in the documentary mostly give gushing comments about how Idol was an influence to them. These famous fans include Miley Cyrus, Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong, Duran Duran bass player John Taylor, Guns N’Roses bass player Duff McKagan, and Fall Out Boy lead singer Patrick Stump. Cyrus says, “I watched Billy Idol like I watched porn. There’s no one hotter or who radiates more sexuality than Billy Fucking Idol.”
Grammy-winning producer Nile Rodgers tells a funny story about how he and Idol were hanging out a nightclub in New York City sometime in 1982, and they saw David Bowie sitting at a table by himself. Idol was eager to meet Bowie and introduced himself and Rodgers to Bowie. Just as he was shaking Bowie’s hand, Idol vomited, and then acted like the vomit was no big deal. Rodgers said that’s when he knew that Idol was one of the “coolest” people he ever met. Rodgers says this meeting led to Rodgers working with Bowie on Bowie’s 1983 smash album “Let’s Dance.”
Other people interviewed in the documentary include former MTV executive John Sykes, “Dancing With Myself” music video director David Mallet, Billy Idol friend/producer John Diaz and Billy Idol friend/personal assistant Art Natoli. The documentary has some anime-styled interludes instead of actors doing re-enactments of the stories told in the movie. “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” is competently made and is a very good introduction for people who are unfamiliar with Idol. Longtime fans will also like some of the interviews. However, it’s not an entirely comprehensive documentary since it tends to let Idol’s “bad boy” stories overshadow further insights into how he created music in his heyday.
Fremantle Media and Live Nation Productions released “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” in select U.S. cinemas on October 24, 2025.
