Hunter S. Thompson Sets His Christmas Tree on Fire, Nearly Burning His House Down (1990)

"I gave up on the inter­view and start­ed wor­ry­ing about my life when Hunter Thomp­son squirt­ed two cans of fire starter on the Christ­mas tree he was going to burn in his liv­ing-room fire­place, a few feet away from an unopened wood­en crate of 9‑mm bul­lets. That the tree was far too large to fit into the fire­place mat­tered not a whit to Hunter, who was sport­ing a dime-store wig at the time and resem­bled Tony Perkins in Psy­cho."

"Min­utes ear­li­er, he had smashed a Polaroid cam­era on the floor. Hunter had decid­ed to video­tape the Christ­mas tree burn­ing, and we lat­er heard on the replay the ter­ri­fied voic­es of Deb­o­rah Fuller, his long­time sec­re­tary-baby sit­ter, and me off-cam­era plead­ing with him, "NO, HUNTER, NO! PLEASE, HUNTER, DON'T DO IT!" The orig­i­nal man­u­script of Hell's Angels was on the table, and there were the bul­lets. Noth­ing doing."

Hunter S. Thompson maintained an annual ritual of burning Christmas trees at his Owl Farm cabin. Deborah Fuller left discarded trees on the porch because Thompson often wanted to set them aflame. In 1990 a visitor observed Thompson squirt two cans of fire starter onto a tree placed near an unopened wooden crate of 9‑mm bullets, then smash a Polaroid camera and don a dime-store wig. He videotaped the burning while companions pleaded with him to stop. The original manuscript of Hell's Angels sat on the table, and the wooden mantel still bears burn marks.

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