The standard retelling of the incident, cemented in Stephen Davis's sensationalist 1985 Led Zeppelin biography Hammer of the Gods, alleged that Led Zeppelin members bound a young female groupie to a bed and assaulted her using parts of a freshly caught shark. Led Zeppelin tour manager Richard Cole repeatedly took credit for orchestrating the stunt, claiming primary involvement during intoxicated hotel escapades.
Subsequent historical investigations, including firsthand testimony from Vanilla Fudge keyboardist Mark Stein and drummer Carmine Appice, painted a vastly different picture. Appice confirmed that Vanilla Fudge members caught the dogfish, not Zeppelin. According to Appice and Stein, members of Vanilla Fudge were filming home movies in their room with a willing groupie who was a close companion of the musicians. Cole walked into the suite, picked up the nose of a small, cold fish lying in the bathtub, and briefly pressed it toward the woman for a tasteless, filmed gag. Robert Plant and John Paul Jones were not present; Jimmy Page and John Bonham were elsewhere in the building. Cole later recanted several embellishments from his book before his death in 2021, acknowledging he exaggerated road stories to drive sales.
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