Gary Glitter Arrested

Authorities in Vietnam arrested former British glam rocker Gary Glitter on Saturday, following allegations concerning his relationship with a Vietnamese fifteen-year-old girl.

Glitter (born Paul Francis Gadd), 61, was stopped by officers while checking his passport as he was preparing to fly from Bangkock from Ho Chi Minh city. The rocker was turned over to the Ba Ria-Vung Tau provincial police and returned to Vung Tau, where Glitter has been living since March, and detained for further investigation. No other details were released.

Glitter had applied for permanent Vietnam residence before fleeing his home on November 12th. Police allege the rocker was involved with two girls under the age of eighteen and have conducted several interviews with one girl to clarify her relationship with Glitter.

"If evidence of a [legal] violation is found against Mr. Paul Francis, and especially evidence of sexual child abuse, I believe that very strict legal measures will apply to him," Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dung told the Associated Press.

Glitter, who scored his biggest U.S. hit in 1972 with "Rock and Roll Part 2," was convicted in Britain of possessing child pornography in 1999 and served two months of a four-month sentence in jail. He later moved to Cambodia, where he was blacklisted in 2002, though Cambodian officials did not specify the charges.

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Song Stories

“Too Close”

Next | 1998

Next was formed in Minneapolis when the uncle of Terry "T-Low" and Raphael "Tweety" Brown, who was a gospel choir director, introduced the brothers to Robert Lavelle "R.L." Huggar. Sounds of Blackness singer Ann Nesby groomed the R&B group before handing them over to Naughty by Nature's KayGee, who wrote and produced "Too Close." The idea for the song was sparked "from a conversation we had with several girls at a nightclub," explained T-Low. "It's talking about the club scene, with guys getting out of hand and the female telling him to back up, asking, 'What are you doing?'" 

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