After the NME’s 2007 rehash of the 1992 homophobic hit piece, the press drive to defame him became acute, with a never ending series of scandals hyped up from sundry words, phrases, incidents & accidents. Ignoring his obvious ill health & the strong medication he said he was prescribed, some commentators decided he was an erratic, lying, crank.
[I] had a very bad time, I had internal bleeding and was rushed into hospital, and I lost a lot of blood and they tried to patch me together, over the following five weeks, but it didn’t quite work, and I was on a lot of IV drips for almost five weeks, and each time it seemed as though I was back to robust health I would decline. So this is what happened, I’m afraid with the festival this week I saw the doctors and they said, “no no no no, you cannot” because I had lost so much blood and I had became anemic, but I’m still receiving ongoing treatment and I’m very optimistic now. (Morrissey, Mexico City Reactor Radio, 19 March 2013) http://www.cristinarocks.com/2013/03/morrissey-mexico-city-interview.html?m=1
Flailing from controversy to controversy, Morrissey has the air of someone determined to generate headlines, regardless of the long-term impact on his reputation. (Ed Power, Irish Times, 29 July 2011) https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/music/is-morrissey-a-genius-or-a-crank-26756315.html
In 2014 a trio of scandals had their strongest impact on fansite, Morrissey Solo – nicknamed SoLow by Morrissey in 2003 when they posted a rumour that he hadn’t paid his tour crew.
There’s a hateful online creche called Morrissey SoLow, which cured me of canvassing opinions many years ago. (Morrissey, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, January 2013)
In June Morrissey had to cancel some gigs because of a cold that he thought he’d caught from support act Kirsteen Young. Kirsteen countered that she’d had a 16-hour allergy attack and not a cold.
In July, Bradley Steyn, claimed that he was hired as Morrissey’s bodyguard and then was immediately fired for not agreeing to kill David Tseng, owner of Morrissey Solo.
In December a rider for a gig in Croatia led to a long-running saga involving cheese wheels.
2006 and 2015 saw leaked email scandals.
In 2016 there was a palaver over Supreme t-shirts. Morrissey modelled for them but didn’t like the way he looked, didn’t like looking at himself all over town, thought it was linked to a meat company, and couldn’t use a photo he preferred because his nephew put it on Instagram.
https://www.gq.com/story/supreme-morrissey-tee-statement-spring-summer-2016-collection
And in 2017 he was upset by an armed Italian police officer who stopped him for driving the wrong way.
Folk Devil 