Michael Alig, the extravagantly costumed “King of the Club Kids” in the late 1980s and early 1990s in Manhattan, whose involvement in the sordid murder and dismemberment of his drug dealer was narrated in the 2003 feature film Party Monster, died this morning of a suspected heroin overdose. He was 54 years old.
Alig was found unconscious in his Washington Heights apartment in Upper Manhattan by a friend just before 3 am. The doctors declared him dead on the spot. The death was first reported by the New York Daily News.
Alig, who reigned over the Manhattan club scene as a party promoter for Peter Gatien’s immensely popular dance clubs Limelight and Palladium, was already famous outside the city’s luxuriously dressed demimonde before the murder, having made frequent appearances at Club Kid , designed to shock daytime talk shows, like The Joan Rivers Show and Geraldo.
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The seemingly amusing facade of the Club Kid scene became irrevocably somber with the disappearance of Andre “Angel” Melendez in March 1996, a favorite nightlife musician who was a DJ, wore angel wings and did drugs. In November of that year, parts of Melendez’s body transported by the Hudson River reached the coast of Staten Island.
Although the case initially attracted little media coverage, a blind Village Voice article by nightlife columnist Michael Musto almost mentioned Alig and his fellow Club Kid Robert “Freeze” Riggs as the killers.
Eventually, the bizarre and sordid story emerged: a discussion about drug debts became violent, with Riggs hammering Melendez in the head and Alig smothering him with a sweatshirt. The duo, drugged with ketamine, heroin and cocaine, among other toxics, dismembered Melendez’s body and left it for days in the bathtub in the tall apartment at Alig’s Hell’s Kitchen, soaked with Drano and cologne. Alig even gave small parties in the apartment while the hidden parts of the body rotted.
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Alig and Rigg eventually dumped the remains in the Hudson River. The murder became something of an open secret on the club scene, and both Alig and Riggs pleaded guilty in 1996 to the murder. Alig served 17 years in prison, was released in 2014 and in 2017 ended his probation, soon making attempts to return to the city’s night culture, selling works of art and, once, being arrested for smoking crystal in a city park. (Riggs was released on parole in 2010.)
The murder and the club scene were narrated in two documentaries: 1998 Party Monster: The Shockumentary and 2015 Glory Daze: The Life and Times of Michael Alig.
But Alig’s story is more widely known in 2003 Party Monster, starring Macaulay Culkin as Alig, Dylan McDermott as Gatien and Seth Green as James St. James, a friend of Alig’s Kid Club and mentor whose book, Disco blood bath, the film was based.
After his release from prison, Alig co-hosted the YouTube talk show with his fellow Club Kid Ernie Glam The Pee-ew. He would recall his prison days for Rolling Stone magazine: “I went to prison addicted to heroin and it is a very difficult drug to give up – especially in prison. I would like to shut down, go through withdrawal and hope to feel better a week or a month later. And when it didn’t, I decided, ‘Fuck it. I committed this horrible crime, no one will ever forgive me, I may as well get high and not have to deal with it. ‘”