Michael Imperioli on "abusive" scenes from The Sopranos

Michael Imperioli says it was "abusive" for some of the scenes he had to film for HBO TV show The Sopranos. He played a character named Christopher Moltisanti, a member of the Soprano family in New Jersey. He was also a drug addict whose addiction worsened as time went on. His girlfriend was a woman named Adriana, played by actress Drea De Matteo, who gets killed later on when it's discovered she's an informant for the FBI

According to Michael Imperioli, "You have to go to some nasty places." In a recent interview with The Guardian, Imperioli said it was "brutal" when he had to be a physically abusive person on the show. "The most brutal, difficult stuff for me is when Christopher had to be physically abusive with Adriana, for obvious reasons." On the show, Christopher was in a relationship with Adriana La Cerva, played by Drea De Matteo."On a technical level, you're trying to be really careful so you don't hurt the person. But having to get that point of violence toward a woman, you have to go some nasty places to get there. Sometimes it's very immediate. Sometimes it's something present in your life that you can tap into. Sometimes you have to go someplace from the past. And sometimes you have to go to someplace imaginary."

The actor, now currently playing Dominic Di Grasso on The White Lotus, continued. "It's much easier shooting a mobster or shooting heroin. That stuff to me is not difficult. But that stuff with her was. Sometimes you'll use stunt doubles, sometimes not. And even then, it's one thing to choreograph and rehearse it, then when you act it full-tilt with all the emotion, it's easy to not have as much control as in the rehearsal. So you really have to be quite careful."

Michael Imperioli appeared as main character Christopher Moltisanti throughout all six seasons of The Sopranos. Originally his character's name was to be Dean Moltisanti, but was changed to Christopher. His character predated the 2021 prequel film The Many Saints of Newark.

During his interview with The Guardian, Imperioli also shared that his late co-star James Gandolfini was one of the best on-screen partners he's had. "He's probably the actor I've acted with most. He always put in 110%. He managed to find the intensity and the reality in every moment. That pushed you farther." Unfortunately, while on vacation in Rome, Italy with his family on June 19, 2013, he passed away. His son Michael found him unconscious in a hotel bathroom. When paramedics rushed him to a nearby hospital, his cause of death was declared a heart attack

True Crime: New York City

This game is fun, but definitely aimed at an older audience because of the very mature situations dealt with in this game

Summary
-You are Marcus Reed, a former gangbanger turned police officer, whose dad is Isiah "The King" Reed. After being given the chance to change his life and leave his gangbanging ways behind him, Marcus joins the police academy and becomes a cop, with the help of PDNY detective Terry Higgins. After becoming a cop, he manages to become a beat cop in the Organized Crime Unit. You soon come into contact with an eccentric FBI agent named Gabriel Whitting, who is looking into rumors of there being a mole in OCU and somehow that mole having connections to four major organized crime factions in the city

Gameplay
-There are four different chapters to do missions in this game. In order to move on, you must solve the missions in each case
-The Magdelena Cartel
-The Shadow Tong
-The Presidents Club
-The Palermo Mob

-The Magdelena Cartel takes you to the neighborhood of Spanish Harlem, investigating a cartel moving cocaine, ecstasy and other narcotics into poorer neighborhoods. The case ends with you taking down the head, Teresa Castillo, at the Opera House in the theatre district. She's aboard a wooden boat on the opera stage and you must shoot it to arrest her

-The Palermo Mob is your typical Mafia case. You go from talking to a high ranking mobster in Little Italy, to taking down a funeral director in Washington Heights to taking down a mob boss' contactor son on top of a construction boom crane

-The Presidents Club is the name of a club of drug dealers using names of presidents. They are pushing a new drug called "Pop" on to the streets. The mysterious leader of this "club" is a rapper/music producer named Lionel, and to solve this case, you must fight him in hand to hand combat in a Zen garden on top of the building housing his studio

-The Shadow Tong is a pretty tough case. You go to Chinatown to talk to a store owner, then try and rescue the sister of an up and coming Chinese Tong member named Leeland Shen. You discover he is smuggling Chinese immigrants in and forcing them to work in sweatshops

-The layout is pretty typical of any open world game. You can drive around, shoot guns, talk to people, etc. But in this game, you can do more. You can frisk people and if they have contraband, you can either arrest them or bribe them. You can do side missions which include seeking information from confidential informants (in this game, the three informants are The King, who happens to be Marcus' father, the Madam, who runs a high class prostitution service, and Freddie, a gypsy Middle Eastern cab driver)

 

-This game is very similar to True Crime: Streets of LA in the sense that you can solve street crimes, you can enter buildings, you can also use public transportation to get around, which in this games' case is taxis and the subway system. There is also the "Good Cop/Bad Cop" point system in here. The end of the game depends on what you do. If you get too many Bad Cop points, the police will consider you to have "gone rogue" and they will attack you. If you do the Good Cop and get a lot of good points, all is well

 

 

 

-Here you can enter buildings and frisk people for contraband. To get good cop points, arrest the people, but to get bad cop points, you can frame innocent people by planting evidence. You can enter buildings and do all sorts of stuff. To gain lost health, you can visit pharmacies, stop by hot dog or food stands, delis, clothing stores where you can buy new clothes, barber shops to get new haircuts, dojos to pick up new skills and weapons, music stores to pick up new music for the in-game soundtrack, gun stores to pick up new weapons

-When driving, the police dispatch will let you know about crimes occurring. You must solve a set number of crimes in each neighborhood before it is considered "clean". When you look at the map and hover over it with the pointer, it will either be red, meaning and saying that the crime level is extremely high, orange, meaning and saying the crime level is medium, yellow, meaning and saying the crime level is low or green, meaning and saying that that neighborhood is clean. To clean up the neighborhood, solve crimes, frisk suspicious-looking civilians. If nothing is done about the crimes, the crime rate will go up, stores will close, the streets will be dirty, more random crimes will occur and the civilians will become extremely aggressive

-You can also move up the ranks of being a police officer. You can go to the police precinct (marked by a very large badge in Midtown) and enter the police department to turn in contraband and get paid. There are two ways of making money in here-legitimate and illegitimate. The "legit" way of making money is doing your job-stopping crime, frisking suspicious-looking civilians and turning in contraband. The "illegitimate" way of doing it is shaking down store owners, bribing people and in all senses of the word, breaking the law

Day 08-A photo that makes you angry/sad

Angry
Bullying
-I hate this because it reminds me of high school. I was the one who had to help the ignorant classmates with their Spanish work or art work. I got treated like absolute garbage simply because I refused to put out like the other girls, because I chose to listen to music different than everyone else or had different interests/likes/passions than everyone else!! And to this day, what blows my mind is that those who treated me bad are now my friends on Facebook. They're all nice to me as I am nice to them. Time really does heal all wounds...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sad

Racism/discrimination

-Around me, there's a civil rights group called Black Lives Matter. They stand up for the rights of black people. But they fail to notice that it's black people committing crimes and giving everyone a bad name, that it's black people leaving their children to die in hot cars or getting them addicted to drugs or beating them to death or claiming that their children have been kidnapped only to be found murdered days later. I've always firmly believed that you should never blame the whole for the actions of a few. It's the few black people and white people that do this that give everyone else a bad rep. I just can't stand the hypocrisy behind this group. They only seem to care about black people. As far as that group is concerned, everyone else can go die without one shred of concern!! What about everyone else? Do other lives not matter? Does it not matter if Jewish people die? Or Italian people? Or Asian people? Black people are not the only ones on the planet!!

-I become sad when I hear about racism/discrimination because I am a lover of all people. We are all the same, just come in different packages

Can you believe this?!?!?!?!?!

Led Zeppelin is on trial for Stairway to Heaven!

Yes, you read it right. Led Zeppelin is on trial in Los Angeles after claims that the song copied the song "Taurus" by band Spirit. The band's founder, Randy California, is suing Zeppelin

On May 10, according to the Washington Post, the lawsuit states, on Randy California's behalf two years ago, that Robert Plant and Jimmy Page, the iconic vocalist and guitarist for Zeppelin, copied parts of the song "Taurus" to use for their song "Stairway to Heaven". A US District judge named Gary Klausner says that while the songs do sound similar, they're common enough to be completely meaningless and thus harmless

The judge had this to say. "While it is true that a descending chromatic four-chord progression is a common convention that abounds in the music industry, the similarities here transcend this core structure. For example, the descending bass line in both Taurus and Stairway to Heaven appears at the beginning of both songs, arguably the most recognizable and important segments. … Additionally, the descending bass line is played at the same pitch, repeated twice and separated by a short bridge in both songs."

How the media damages women

I agree with this all the way!! Because of how the media portrays women having to be thin and have perfect bodies, this is why I don't read those gossip rags like People, Star, OK, etc. Seeing pictures of those famous actresses makes me feel insignificant, like no matter how much makeup I wear or weight I lose, I'll never be beautiful.

As a sort of experiment, 24 year old blogger Sarah Coffman wanted to motivate women and redefine how the media portrays women. Along with a few friends of hers and help from photographer Terence Smalls, each woman was given a Sharpie pen and told to draw on themselves, like a plastic surgeon would, highlighting what they would like to change about themselves.

1. "As women we try to fit inside of 'young enough,' 'thin enough,' 'pretty enough,' 'nice enough,' 'tough enough,' 'able enough,' without ever becoming 'too much,'" claims Coffman.

2. "If you want to be socially acceptable you need to keep yourself inside the lines"

3. "If you look at the cover of any woman’s magazine there’s three main themes: what can you do for men, learn to love yourself, and how to lose 30 pounds in some ridiculously unhealthy amount of time"

4. "How can anyone be okay with these articles? Why do we have to care SO much about what HE thinks?"

5. "Every woman out there has those lines of insecurity, and they continue to grow because we allow them to"

6. "In a few of the photos you can see that the women are actually pointing out each other's 'shortcomings.' That may be a bigger problem than the media"

7. "Part of the reason that media has such a huge impact is because we let it"

8. "Often times you’ll hear women call each other fat or sticks or slutty"

9. "..which not only gives men the permission to treat us the same way we treat each other but it gives permission to the media to treat us that way too"

10. "We are so much more than the bodies we live in..."

11. "That's what true beauty is. Not afraid to be and show yourself for who you really are"

12. "Internalized misogyny is such a huge problem"

13. "There's a trend, it's been a trend for decades, to cram women into a certain ideal that for most people is simply unattainable. That's not fair to young girls"

14. "We live in a society where women are constantly being stripped down and evaluated, without physically being stripped down," Smalls said on his website"

15. Smalls adds: "What does it look like when we actually strip women down and evaluate their physical "shortcomings?"  How insane does it look? How uncomfortable does it make us feel?"

16. Be your true beautiful self

17. Beauty is everywhere

This is so wrong!

Fashion designers Dolce & Gabbana made some VERY controversial comments in a magazine, calling children born through in-vitro fertilization, or IVF, "synthetic children". Elton John is now boycotting them, as he has every right to! Besides, I've seen pictures of their kids!! They are soooooo cute!!!!! I love babies sometimes!!!! :D :D

The Telegraph has stated that Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana told an Italian magazine, Panorama, that they don't believe in using in-vitro fertilization, that they don't support this for creating families for gay couples. "We oppose gay adoptions. The only family is the traditional one. No chemical offsprings and rented uterus. Life has a natural flow; there are things that should not be changed. You are born to a mother and father; or at least that's how it should be." This was the quote that Dolce said. "I call children of chemistry synthetic children."

Elton John and longtime partner David Furnish have two children conceived using IVF. He took to Instagram to vent his opinions. "How dare you refer to my beautiful children as ‘synthetic.’ And shame on you for wagging your judgemental little fingers at IVF — a miracle that has allowed legions of loving people, both straight and gay, to fulfill their dream of having children". He also added "Your archaic thinking is out of step with the times, just like your fashions. I shall never wear Dolce and Gabbana ever again". Rock on, Elton John!

They both fired back with separate statements. Dolce said "I’m Sicilian and I grew up in a traditional family, made up of a mother, a father and children. I am very well aware of the fact that there are other types of families and they are as legitimate as the one I’ve known. But in my personal experience, family had a different configuration. That is the place where I learnt the values of love and family. This is the reality in which I grew up, but it does not imply that I don’t understand different ones. I was talking about my personal view, without judging other people’s choices and decisions." While his partner expressed this: "We firmly believe in democracy and the fundamental principle of freedom of expression that upholds it. We talked about our way of seeing reality, but it was never our intention to judge other people’s choices. We do believe in freedom and love."

Sometimes people who are unable to conceive and who wants kids use this process. And besides, how many times do you hear about in the news or read in the paper about gay/lesbian parents beating their children to death, shaking their babies to death because they wouldn't stop crying, pushing their kids down stairs, stabbing their children to death because they wouldn't stop crying, getting their kids hooked on drugs or leaving their kids in hot cars to die while they run errands? I'll tell you-0.00% of the time! Most of the time, it's young, inexperienced, STRAIGHT parents who thought having sex was cool until a surprise came along nine months later. And the teens that become parents who end up as horrible parents give a bad name to the teen parents that become good parents. There are a lot of good teen parents out there who raise their kid(s) right.

Historic events in September

History

9/1/1939: Hitler's armies invade Poland during WWII
9/1/1983: Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down by a Russian fighter jet while en route from New York to Seoul, killing all 269 people on board. It reportedly strayed over a secret Soviet military installation on the Kamchatka Peninsula
9/1/1923: Boxer Rocky Marciano was born in Brockton, Massachusetts. He died in a plane crash in 1969

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9/2/1666: The Great Fire of London begins in a bakery in Pudding Lane near The Tower. Over the course of 3 days, it destroys more than 13,000 houses and only 6 people died

9/2/1923: The first free elections were held in the Irish Free State after achieving independence from Britain
9/2/1962: Soviets send arms to Cuba, resulting in the October Missile Crisis
9/2/1963: Alabama governor George Wallace halts integration by surrounding Tuskegee High School with state troopers

9/2/1986: Christa McAuliffe, a 37 year old high school teacher, becomes the first "ordinary citizen" to go up in space. But she died with 6 other crew members in the Challenger shuttle explosion 74 seconds after liftoff

9/3/1833: The New York Sun is created. It marks the beginning of the 'penny press', inexpensive newspapers featuring human interest stories to be sold by paper boys

9/3/1838: Anti-slavery leader Frederick Douglass begins his escape from slavery by boarding a train in Baltimore dressed as a sailor. He rode to Wilmington, Delaware,  where he took a steamboat to Philadelphia, and took a train to New York City, where he began the Underground Railroad

9/4/1609: Island of Manhattan is discovered by explorer Henry Hudson
9/4/1781: Los Angeles is discovered by Spanish governor of California, Felipe de Neve, near the Native American village of Yang-Na
9/5/1972: 11 members of the Israeli Olympic Team were killed during an attack on the Olympic Village in Munich by members of the Black September faction of the Palestine Liberation Army
9/5/1997: Mother Teresa, who spent her life aiding the sick and poor of India, dies in Calcutta at age 87

9/6/1991: Leningrad was renamed St. Petersburg by Russian legislators following the collapse of the Soviet Union
9/7/1940: "The London Blitz" begins. German Luftwaffe begin it's bombing campaign against London, nearly destroying everything in the city

9/11/2001: This day will be remembered forever! 4 large passenger planes were hijacked, then crashed in to the World Trade Center towers in New York City, killing nearly 3,000 people. 4 separate teams of Mideast terrorists, boarded the morning flights posing as passengers, then forcibly took over control of the aircraft. Two fully fueled jets, American Airlines Flight 11 carrying 92 people and United Airlines Flight 175 carrying 65 people had departed Boston for L.A. Both flights were diverted to New York where they were piloted into the World Trade Center. The impact and fire following it caused both of the 110 ton story buildings to collapse, killing 2,752 people including hundreds of rescue workers and employees in the towers. In addition, United Airlines flight 93, which departed from Newark, New Jersey headed for San Francisco, and American Airlines flight 77, which departed Dulles, Virginia for L.A. was hijacked. Flight 77 had 64 people on board and was diverted to Washington D.C. and piloted into the Pentagon building, killing all patrons on board and 125 military personnel in the Pentagon. Flight 93, with 44 people on board, was diverted to Washington D.C. as well and crashed in a field in Pennsylvania after passengers attempted to override the terrorists

9/12/1977: South African anti-Apartheid activist Stephen Biko dies in police custody

 

 

 

9/12/1913: black athlete Jesse Owens is born in Oakville, Alabama. He won 4 medals in track and field at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany defeating the Nazi athletes and disappointing Nazi leader Adolf Hitler

9/13/1971: Attica state prison riot. National Guardsmen and State Police stormed Attica State Prison in Buffalo, N.Y. ending a 5 day prison riot. 31 prisoners and 11 guards were killed

9/14/1930: The Nazi Party becomes the second largest party in Germany following the election of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor
9/14/1982: Princess Grace of Monaco died from an accident involving her car going off the side of the road in Monte Carlo. Princess Grace was American actress Grace Kelly, who married Prince Ranier III while filming the Hitchcock movie To Catch a Thief
9/15/1916: Tanks were introduced into combat, at the Battle of the Somme, in WWI
9/15/1857: British mystery author Agatha Christie was born in Torquay, England
9/15/1908: General Motors is founded by William Durant in Flint, Michigan
9/18/1905: Swedish actress Greta Garbo is born in Stockholm, Sweden
9/24/1957: President Dwight D. Eisenhower enforced racial integration of schools in Little Rock, Arkansas
9/24/1936: Puppeteer and Muppets creator Jim Henson is born in Greenville, Mississippi. He is best known for creating The Muppets, and Sesame Street

9/26/1898: Composer George Gershwin is born in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is best known for Rhapsody in Blue and Porgy and Bess
9/29/1829: Britain's "bobbies" made their first appearance. Greater London's Metropolitan Police force was established by an act of Parliament at the request of Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel, after whom they were nicknamed. They later became known as Scotland Yard, the site of their first headquarters

9/30/1955: Actor James Dean is killed in a car crash in California at age 24

Really? Gene Simmons has the nerve to say this?

Gene Simmons calls former Kiss drummer Peter Criss and former guitarist Ace Frehley "drunks" and "losers"

It's always been known that if Gene Simmons is given a direct question, he'll give a direct answer, no holds barred. He talked to Rolling Stone Magazine to promote the new Kiss book "Nothin' to Lose" and was full of abrasive comments about the two former KISS players. Initially, he was dismissed as "the bad guy" in the firing of Peter Criss and Ace Frehley

"I am the bad guy," responded Simmons. "I won’t stand for drunks and alcoholics who get up on stage and consider it their birthright. I consider it a privilege to get up there and arrive on time and be sober, and I’ll be an a–hole to anybody who thinks otherwise. You know who else is an a–hole? Your teacher was an a–hole. Your parents are a–holes. Your drill sergeant was an a–hole. Because they wouldn’t let you get away with s—. Ace and Peter have had a lifetime of being losers. And not just with drugs and alcohol. They’re losers because of wrong decisions. You sleep in the bed you make. How many chances in life do you get? They were in and out of the band three different times. Why should they get another chance?" He also added "Anybody who gets angry at us are just small people with small dreams who never achieved anything and will always be angry,” argued Simmons later in the interview. “But they’re mostly angry with themselves for being losers."

Thank God Paul Stanley is my favorite. At least he's nice, sweet and loveable. And he don't do stupid crap like this!

If only Peter Criss and Ace Frehley knew this one...

Rockers who've done hard time

Here are some rockers who've done time in jail

Mick Jagger
-Surprised? I'm not
-Jail time or arrests come naturally to members of the Rolling Stones as their good music does. Mick Jagger's most famous arrest was in 1967, after his arrest at Keith Richards' house in Redlands for possession of drugs. Mick was sentenced to 3 months in Brixton Prison and while there, wrote "2,000 Light Years Away"

Tommy Lee
-Surprised? [snickering]
-In 1998, Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee was arrested for domestic abuse after he hit his then wife Pamela Anderson

Paul McCartney
-In Jan. 1980, he headed to Japan as a stop on his tour with band Wings, but was stopped in Tokyo when customs officials found half a pound of marijuana in his luggage

Ozzy Osbourne
-Not really surprised with him
-He's been arrested for numerous things. His first arrest was in 1965, when he was in his teens and still known as John Osbourne, his real name. He spent 7 weeks in a Birmingham prison for failing to pay fines for a burglary conviction and then later on in 1989 was in jail for, while drunk, attempting to kill then wife Sharon by strangulation. Also to add, on Feb. 19, 1982, he was drunk and urinated on the Alamo Cenotaph, which honors the Texans who died at the Battle of the Alamo

Keith Richards
-There he is, Mr. Nothing-Can-Kill-Me
-Most famous arrest? The same one that put Mick Jagger behind bars. Possession of drugs at his Redlands house

Sid Vicious
-Was the bass player for The Sex Pistols. When his girlfriend Nancy Spungen was found dead from stab wounds in the hotel room they shared, naturally he was the first suspect. He then died from a lethal overdose of heroin

Judas Priest

These guys rule the world of metal!!!!!!! They're my #1 fave metal band!

Judas Priest

This is the picture they use on the front of their Essential Judas Priest album. I know that 'cuz I got it :D. Only it's in black and white

Origin: Birmingham, England
Genres: Heavy metal, speed metal
Years Active: 1969-present
Website: http://www.judaspriest.com/

-Formed in Birmingham in 1969
-They are very well known for twin lead guitars, high vocal ranges from Rob Halford, their lead singer, and introducing the leather and studs S&M look into heavy metal
-In 1989, they were pulled into court, being told that their song "Better By You, Better Than Me" off their Stained Class album had subliminal messages urging two guys to kill themselves
-Current lineup consists of Rob Halford, Glenn Tipton, Richie Faulkner, Ian Hill, Scott Travis
-Their most successful lineup was in 1982, the year their most successful album, Screaming for Vengeance, came out. Then it was Rob Halford (vocals) Glenn Tipton (guitar), K.K. Downing (guitar), Ian Hill (bass), Dave Holland (drums)
-The band has inspired in many ways sub genres of metal, including power metal and thrash metal

Members
Rob Halford

Ian Hill

Glenn Tipton

Scott Travis

Richie Faulkner

Former Members
Al Atkins
K.K. Downing
Dave Holland
Tim "Ripper" Owens
Les Binks
John Hinch
Alan Moore
John Ellis

History
-K.K. Downing, John Ellis and Ian Hill all knew each other growing up in England. They shared similar musical tastes (Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, The Who, The Yardbirds). They officially started in Oct. 1970, and got the name from a Bob Dylan song called "The Ballad of Frankie Lee and Judas Priest"
-Al Atkins came and joined the trio, who were playing as the power trio Freight. Atkins asked to be the lead singer. He the suggested changing the name to Judas Priest. The original group formed in 1969, and like most British bands, they started out playing blues. With Downing acting as the unofficial leader, he made a decision they should start playing hard rock
-They started opening for bands like Thin Lizzy, Budgie, Trapeze. Due to financial difficulties and problems with their management, Tony Iommi's company, IMA, this led to Alan Atkins and drummer Alan Moore to quitting
-At the time, bass player Ian Hill was dating a woman named Susan Halford, who suggested her brother Rob as a singer replacement. He joined, bringing John Hinch from his previous band Hiroshima

Rocka Rolla (1974-1975)
-Before the band was due to record their first album, it was suggested they bring in another musician. Glenn Tipton was suggested to play horn or keyboard, but instead went to guitar. In August 1974, they wrote their first album, RockaRolla

Sad Wings of Destiny (1975-1977)
-During Nov. and Dec. 1975, they worked on their next album. They played the songs on this album at the 1975 Reading Festival to help raise interest in the band. This album includes a lot of fan favorites, including "Victim of Changes"

Les Binks (1977-1979)
-During this period, the band took on their now famous leather and studs look, inspired by Rob Halford going into a London S&M shop
-In 1978, they recorded Stained Class and Killing Machine, which was released as Hell Bent for Leather in the US
-This is when Les Binks entered the band and with his skills, he added a better edge to the band's already strong heavy metal sound

Main Success (1979-1991)
-Les Binks quit because of the direction the band was going in and was replaced by Dave Holland
-In 1980, they released British Steel, where the songs were shorter, but had the general heavy metal feel. This album included awesome tracks like "Breaking the Law" "Living After Midnight"
-Their 1982 Screaming for Vengeance album ended up being the most successful

-On July 13, 1985, Judas Priest played Live Aid, along with Black Sabbath

-In 1990, they released their Painkiller album. This is also when they started using a new drummer, Scott Travis. And this is when the Judas Priest shows became what they are known for today. Rob Halford started riding out onto the stage on a Harley Davidson motorcycle, dressed in motorcycle leathers and sunglasses. At a show in Toronto in August 1991, he was severely injured when he collided with a drum riser hidden behind clouds of dry ice. The show was delayed, but being the strong man he is, he finished the show then went to the hospital

 



-During the summer of 1990, the band was involved in a legal suit, alleging they were responsible for the self-inflicted deaths of 20 year old James Vance and 18 year old Raymond Belknap in Spark, Nevada. The two had shot themselves, after hours of drinking beer, smoking marijuana and listening to Judas Priest. They went to a church playground, bringing a 12 gauge shotgun along, and shot their lives away. Belknap died instantly after placing the shotgun under his chin. Vance shot himself, but survived. He died three years later. The parents of the men sued the band, saying there were subliminal messages of "do it" in their song "Better By You, Better Than Me" from the Stained Class album

-After the 1991 Painkiller album, Halford left the band
-In 1998, in an interview on MTV, Halford revealed he was homosexual. But, it was next to nothing of a shocker to the fans or his band mates, who were openly supportive of him, but were reluctant to let him come out about it to protect the image of him and the band

-In 1996, Tim "Ripper" Owens, who was in a Judas Priest tribute band called British Steel, was brought in as singer. They released two albums with Owens as singer, Jugulator and Demolition. Jugulator contains the awesome track "Cathedral Spires"

Reunion (2003-2006)
-After increasing demands to reunite, Rob Halford and Judas Priest reunited in July 2003

VH1 Rock Honors
-Along with Queen, Kiss, Def Leppard, Judas Priest were inducted at the VH1 Rock Honors. It took place on May 25, 2006, in Las Vegas. They performed "Breaking the Law" "You Got Another Thing Coming" while before them heavy metal band Godsmack played a medley of their songs, such as "Hell Bent for Leather" "Electric Eye" and "Victim of Changes"

Nostradamus (2006-2010)
-In June 2008, they released their concept album Nostradamus
-In February 2009, they spoke out against ticket scalpers. They urged their fans to buy tickets from official sources so that they can actually see the show for what it's worth, not above face value that the scalpers want

Epitaph World and Downing's Retirement (2010-present)
-On Dec. 7, 2010, the band announced they were working on new material.

In Video Games
-In the 2000s, their music has made an appearance in virtually every game that has come out.  In the 2001 game Grand Turismo 3: A-Spec, "Turbo Lover" was featured. In the 2006 Xbox game Prey, 2005 PS2 games Guitar Hero and RoadKill, "You Got Another Thing Coming" was featured
-Guitar Hero Rocks the 80s features "Electric Eye", Scarface: The World is Yours features "Breaking the Law", Rock Band 2 features "Painkiller", which is the hardest song across all the instruments in the game, Guitar Hero: Metallica features "Hell Bent for Leather"

Influence
-Judas Priest has been the main inspiration for virtually every metal band out there since the late 70s. According to VH1,  they were voted the 2nd Greatest Metal Band after fellow Birmingham-based band Black Sabbath
-These guys are revolutionaries in fashion as well. Rob Halford introduced the masculine image of what is today known as the hardcore metal/biker/S&M look. Specifically bands of the NWOBHM (New Wave of British Heavy Metal) started adopting this look. And they even inspired early black metal, which is extremely hardcore metal with fast tempos.