Barbara Cope
Barbara Cope (born Barbara Sheltman; March 19, 1950 – January 14, 2018) was an American rock-and-roll groupie known as "The Butter Queen" in the late 1960s and early 1970s. She was born in Hunt County, Texas, and grew up in Dallas, where she attended Bryan Adams High School. She started following bands in 1965 after a Dallas concert and later toured with Traffic and Jimi Hendrix, before joining Joe Cocker in 1970. She appears in a 1971 segment of the Joe Cocker documentary Mad Dogs & Englishmen. Her nickname came from stories that she used butter during encounters with rock stars. She is mentioned in The Rolling Stones' song "Rip This Joint" and in notes about the Gimme Shelter DVD; other musicians spoke about her as well.
Cope traveled a lot with bands, visiting 52 U.S. cities and 11 countries, and she retired from groupie life in 1972. She once sold Jimi Hendrix autographs to help make ends meet and told Oprah Winfrey in 1987 that she had slept with about 2,000 musicians.
She married David Cope on May 23, 1968, in Dallas, and they had one son. Barbara Cope died in a house fire on January 14, 2018, in Dallas, at age 67. Her mother, Earline Collins, who had been injured in the fire, died later that year.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 19:35 (CET).