The Truth About Axl Rose's Stalker

In November 2009, Justin Timberlake secured a three-year restraining order against an obsessed stranger named Karen McNeil. Parade reported that the singer behind "Sexy Back" felt his own back was against the wall after McNeil took a cab to the his house with her belongings in tow. In court, she testified that she intended to marry Timberlake so that they could "rule" together, presumably as the Archduke of Dancing and the Archduchess of Nuttiness. Vibe wrote that, according to legal documents, McNeil declared herself a "god" and felt that she was being targeted by wicked "Babylonian witches," which isn't even the strangest part of this story.

It turns out that Timberlake not only had the power to bring sexy back, but to reconjure insanity: McNeil had previously been an unhinged thorn in the side of Axl Rose. In fact, she stalked the Guns N' Roses vocalist for years. Here's the disturbing story of what went down.

Guns N' Roses' 1987 album Appetite for Destruction contains a track called "You're Crazy" in which Axl Rose rejects a person pursuing him. The chorus proclaims, "You're crazy, hey hey/ You're f***ing crazy, oh my." Unbeknownst to Rose, he was describing his own future. According to ABC, the same Karen McNeil convinced herself that she was Rose's wife, and could communicate telepathically with the singer. From the sound of things, she was stricken with erotomania, which Dr. Joseph A. Davis describes as "the delusional belief that the stalker is passionately loved by an unattainable victim, generally a celebrity."

In most cases, erotomaniacs emphasize a spiritual connection with the objection of their obsession, but McNeil repeatedly appeared at Rose's home. In 1997, a court ordered her to stay at least 300 yards away from the singer, which shouldn't have been a problem, given her professed telepathy. But People Magazine reported that she was later sentenced to a year behind bars, after trying to break into Rose's home.

In 2000, McNeil racked up more criminal charges after flooding Rose with letters. She then attempted another break-in, via NME. Unconfirmed reports alleged that law enforcement found her in Rose's bed. She was arrested and held on $150,000 bail. McNeil clearly needed help, and given that she later tried to help herself to Justin Timberlake, she also clearly needed more than a court order to restrain her.