Motley Crue's Nikki Sixx 'gang-raped' woman with Tommy Lee, boasted about it in 2001 memoir
'The Dirt,' Netflix biopic on the notorious Mötley Crüe, based on tell-all autobiography 'The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band' has seen a fair share of praise and criticism coming its way.
Jeff Tremaine, who directed the feature off a script written by Rich Wilkes, has showcased the band in all its glory but has not shied away from depicting some of the group's darker moments as well. For instance, one scene in the movie sees drummer Tommy Lee (played by Machine Gun Kelly) punch his fiancée in the face on a tour bus as his other bandmates passively watch on. The somber music and dark color tones tell the viewer that his actions are not to be condoned.
However, unlike the autobiography — which was penned by Neill Strauss with help from Lee, Nikki Sixx, Vince Neil, and Mick Mars — 'The Dirt' leaves out what was arguably the group's worst, most depraved moment: the gangrape of a woman they met at a party.
Rolling Stone reported how, in a segment in the book, Sixx recollected a night where a woman he knew pulled him into a small room at a party and the two began having sex. While that was consensual, Sixx soon leaves the room and returns with Lee, claiming he "tricked the woman as to who she was having sex with."
"We f***** for a while, then I told her I had to go to the bathroom," the segment read. "I went into the party and found Tommy. 'Dude, come here.' I grabbed him. 'I got this chick in the closet. Follow me, and don't say a word. When I tell you, start f****** her.' In the closet, I stood directly behind Tommy. He f***** her while she grabbed my hair and yelled, 'Oh, Nikki! Oh, Nikki!'"
Sixx claimed in the book that, when he woke up the next morning, he didn't remember the previous night until the woman called him and told him she had been raped the previous night. While she said her attacker was a man who had picked her up while she was trying to hitchhike home, Sixx said her story made him feel he "had gone too far."
"At first, I was relieved, because it meant I hadn’t raped her," he wrote. "But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I pretty much had. I was in a zone, though, and in that zone, consequences did not exist. Besides, I was capable of sinking even lower than that."
When questioned about the story recently, Sixx tried to wash his hands off it claiming he didn't recall the story beyond reading it in the book. "I have no clue why it’s in there other than I was outta my head and it’s possibly greatly embellished or [I] made it up," he insisted. "Those words were irresponsible on my part. I am sorry."
He also said he did not recall this story because the autobiography was written "during a really low point in my life," adding how he did not recall a lot of his interviews with Neil [Strauss] because "I had lost my sobriety and was using drugs and alcohol to deal with a disintegrating relationship."
He admitted there was a "lot of horrible behavior in the book" but said all the group members "lived to regret a lot and learned from it." He said, "We own up to all our behavior that hurt our selves, our families, friends and any innocents around us."
But while Sixx was at least apologetic about his behavior, there seemed to be no such remorse from Lee, whose history of intimate partner violence — besides the punching incident — was noticeably absent from 'The Dirt.'
The Daily Beast reported how, in 1998, Lee pleaded no contest to a spousal battery charge for assaulting then-wife Pamela Anderson. He was sentenced to six months in prison, with the judge stating how he saw in Lee "a very clear—very disturbing, in my judgment—pattern of conduct in which otherwise resolvable matters are handled by violence."
In 2018, two decades after the sentence, Lee lashed out at Anderson after she spoke out about her abusive relationship with the drummer during an interview with Piers Morgan. Taking to Twitter, he wrote, "@piersmorgan ur interviews w/Donald Trump & my ex-wife are pathetic! Think she’d find something new to discuss instead of rehashing old s–t but I guess she has nothing else going on & needs attention," controversially adding at the end, "Signed, 'The abuser' (who she texts everyday & asks for me back)."
When Morgan tweeted back at Lee and suggested he take the issue up with Anderson herself, the drummer shot back, "I suggest you don’t interview her. Are you that desperate for people to interview? She literally has NOTHING going on so she brings up old drama for attention. I’m sure there’s some people better worth your time." In a comment responding to a fan, he then wrote, "I’m just tired of hearing the same old bullshit. F***** broken record."