Axl Rose was born William Bruce Rose Jr. in Lafayette, Indiana, the oldest child of Sharon Elizabeth (née Lintner), then 16 and still in high school, and William Bruce Rose, then 20. His father has been described as “a troubled and charismatic local delinquent,” and the pregnancy was unplanned. When Rose was about two years old, his parents divorced, prompting his father to kidnap and allegedly molest him before fleeing Lafayette. His mother remarried Stephen L. Bailey and renamed her son William Bruce Bailey.
He has two younger siblings: Amy, his sister, and Stuart, his half-brother. Rose and his siblings were regularly beaten as children. Rose believed Bailey was his natural father until he was 17 years old. William Rose Sr. was murdered in Marion, Illinois, in 1984 by a criminal acquaintance who was convicted despite the fact that the body was never recovered. Rose found out about the murder years later.
Why did Axl Rose change his name?
In 1986, he legally changed his name to W. Axl Rose. The ‘W’ is a legal symbol, not an abbreviation, and was chosen because Rose did not want William to share his name with his biological father. Prior to Guns And Roses, he was a member of a band called Hollywood Rose.
