Ambar Ramirez
The Rise and Fall of Groupies
Words by Ambar Ramirez
The show begins like any other. Overhead lights dim, stage lights flare and the crowd roars. Backstage, a woman adjusts her smudged eyeliner and pulls her fur-lined coat tight as she watches the band take the stage. She’s not with the band or part of the crew—at least, not officially. She’s a groupie.
The term “groupie” has long swayed between admiration and criticism. On one end of the spectrum, groupies were seen as sexual fanatics — symbols of anti-feminism and obsession. On the other, they were celebrated as the purest form of feminist rebellion: Women who did what they wanted, when they wanted, with whomever they wanted. The only part of the groupie identity that’s never been up for debate? A deep love for the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle, the music — and yes, the men.
My first encounter with the term “groupie” was when I watched the 2000 film by Cameron Crowe, “Almost Famous.” The moment the credits rolled, I sprinted to my mom and told her two things: one, I needed Penny Lane’s fur-lined suede coat, and two, I wanted to be a groupie. She looked at me, a 15-year-old girl riddled with acne and insecurities, with fear in her eyes.
My mom grew up in the late ’60s and ’70s, when rock ’n’ roll and groupies were sweeping the world in a haze of sex, drugs and screaming fans. Her idea of a groupie was wildly different from the romanticized version I saw on screen. I saw women like Penny Lane — played by a young Kate Hudson — who famously said, “We are not groupies. Groupies sleep with rock stars because they want to be near someone famous. We are here because of the music. We inspire the music. We are Band-Aids.”
Fortunately for my mom—and unfortunately for me—I was born in the wrong era (though I’m still on the hunt for that coat, but I digress). The real question is, who is Penny Lane and what happened to other women like her? Well, I’m so glad you asked.
While you might recognize the name Penny Lane from the Beatles song, it’s not actually about a woman — it’s about a suburban street in Liverpool. The Penny Lane character in “Almost Famous,” however, is a different story. Cameron Crowe has said that the character was inspired by several real-life groupies he met during his time writing for Rolling Stone, most notably Pennie Trumbull.
Trumbull, born and raised in Portland, Oregon, dove headfirst into the rock ’n’ roll scene of the 1970s. She co-founded The Flying Garter Girls, a group of women who traveled the country following — and inspiring — famous rock bands. Each girl adopted a nickname, and Trumbull chose Pennie Lane, partly in reference to the Beatles song. The alias wasn’t just about privacy; Much like her fictional counterpart, it created a kind of mythos, allowing anyone to imagine themselves in Penny Lane’s shoes.
That said, not everyone agrees on who most inspired the character. Pamela Des Barres, the queen of groupies, has long claimed that Penny Lane in “Almost Famous” was based more on her than on Trumbull or Bebe Buell, another famous groupie. She’s also argued that the film presented a skewed — and at times, misogynistic — view of what it meant to be a groupie.
In one of the film’s most heartbreaking moments, Penny Lane overdoses after learning that Russell Hammond (played by Billy Crudup) traded her to the band Humble Pie in a poker game — for $50 and a case of Heineken. In an interview with Vulture, Des Barres criticized the scene, saying it reinforced a damaging stereotype and ignored the agency and passion that real-life groupies brought to the rock ’n’ roll world.
Des Barres has become something of a spokesperson for groupiedom. In her 1987 memoir “I’m With the Band: Confessions of a Groupie,” she recounts her wild, unapologetic adventures in the rock ’n’ roll scene, including romantic ties to legends like Keith Moon, Jim Morrison and Mick Jagger. What sets Des Barres apart from other groupies, however, is that she proudly claimed the title — at a time when groupie was still a word whispered with judgment. She didn’t just embrace it; she put it on the map, turning a once-dismissed label into a badge of honor.
But the groupies that Frank Zappa spoke of in a 1969 Rolling Stone magazine, “Groupies are very influential on the record market… If you’re a hit with the groupies, you’ll sell 15,000 records in LA alone,” are now long gone.
The fall of the groupie can be traced to a multitude of reasons. For one, the times changed — the bands got sleazier, the drugs got harder and the glamorous sheen of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle began to fade. With the release of “Nevermind,” Nirvana and the grunge movement ushered in a new era of music that rejected excess and ego.
Then came John Lennon’s assassination — an event many point to as the start of a growing divide between celebrities and the general public. Gone were the days of casually bumping into your favorite musician at a bar. The internet only widened that gap, making artists more visible, but paradoxically, less accessible.
Today, in an age where social media, digital access and online ticketing have replaced long lines at the box office, the term “groupie” has quietly faded from the mainstream. In its place? Mega-fandoms and fan page profiles.
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