Billy Childish (born Steven John Hamper; 1 December 1959) is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer, and guitarist.

[3] He is known for his explicit and prolific work – he has detailed his love life and childhood sexual abuse, notably in his early poetry and the novels My Fault (1996), Notebooks of a Naked Youth (1997), and Sex Crimes of the Futcher (2004) – The Idiocy of Idears (2007), and in several of his songs, notably in the instrumental "Paedophile" (1992) (featuring a photograph of the man who sexually abused him on the front cover) and "Every Bit of Me" (1993).

At Saint Martin's, Childish became friends with Peter Doig, with whom he shared an appreciation of Munch, Van Gogh, and blues music.

In the early/mid 1980s Childish was a "major influence" on the artist Tracey Emin,[11] whom he met after his expulsion from Saint Martin's when she was a fashion student at Medway College of Design.

[20] Childish made records of punk, garage, rock and roll, blues, folk, classical/experimental, spoken word and nursery rhymes.

In 2000, he formed Wild Billy Childish and the Friends of the Buff Medways Fanciers Association (2000–2006), named after a type of poultry bred in his hometown.

Thee Headcoats began their monthly residency at the Wild Western Room in the St John's Tavern, north London, in the early 1990s, and continued after moving to the Dirty Water Club in 1996.

Childish has since been recording as bass player with The Spartan Dreggs, with Neil Palmer on vocals and guitar and Wolf Howard on drums.

[21] In 2014, Childish produced, played on and co-wrote (with Dave Tattersall) most of the songs on The Wave Pictures' album Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon.

[22] Childish has been namechecked by a number of famous musicians, including Kurt Cobain, Graham Coxon, The White Stripes (Jack White had Childish's name written in large letters on his arm for an early Top of the Pops appearance), and Kylie Minogue, who named the LP Impossible Princess after his book Poems to Break the Harts of Impossible Princesses [sic].

There were, however, personality clashes in the group, particularly between Childish and Charles Thomson, who said: "There was friction between us, especially when he started heckling my poetry reading and I threatened to ban him from a forthcoming TV documentary.

[citation needed] During the 1980s, Childish was an influence on the artist Tracey Emin, whom he met in 1982, after his expulsion from the painting department at Saint Martin's School of Art.

Childish wrote a number of manifestos with Thomson, the first of which contained the statement: The Stuckists soon achieved considerable press coverage, fuelled by Emin's nomination for the Turner Prize.

"[25][dead link‍] British artist Stella Vine, who was a member of the Stuckists for a short time in 2001, first joined the group having developed a "crush" on Childish while attending his music events.

[27] In June 2000, Vine went to a talk given by Childish and fellow Stuckist co-founder Charles Thomson on Stuckism and Remodernism, promoted by the Institute of Ideas at the Salon des Arts, Kensington.

In 2004, Childish released a 30-minute documentary titled Brass Monkey, about a march undertaken in Great War uniform commemorating the 90th anniversary of the British retreat from Mons in 1914.