English punk-rock musician William Michael Albert Broad, better known as Billy Idol, experienced an eye scare in the early 1980s when his contacts fused with his corneas after shooting the video to his hit song, Eyes without a face.
Idol wrote about the incident in his auto-biography Dancing with myself, describing the intense pain he felt as a result. “Back in the 80s, I wore hard contact lenses and after shooting Eyes without a face for 48 hours, I flew to the next gig in Tucson, Arizona. At that point, I had been wearing them [the contact lenses] for 36 hours. I hadn’t slept that much, if at all. While waiting for the sound check, I went outside to lay down and passed out on the cool grass outside the college venue. I still hadn’t removed my contacts, until, without warning, I was awakened rather rudely by a sheriff pointing a gun directly at me… When I opened my eyes, I could only make out the outline of his weapon, while tears came pouring from my eyes. Something was wrong! The pain was so intense and my eyes were gushing.” Idol was rushed to hospital and his eyes remained bandaged for two days until his corneas had healed.
The name, ‘Billy Idol’ was coined due to a schoolteacher's description of Idol as ‘idle’. In a 2014 BBC interview, Idol said he wanted to use the name ‘Billy Idle’ but thought the name would be unavailable due to its similarity to Monty Python star Eric Idle, so he chose ‘Billy Idol’ instead.