Mötley Crüe’s Nikki Sixx tells Rolling Stone that he does not recall a story in the band’s 2001 memoir The Dirt where he realizes he may have participated in a sexual assault during a party.
“I don’t actually recall that story in the book beyond reading it,” Sixx tells Rolling Stone. “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. Those words were irresponsible on my part. I am sorry.”
In The Dirt, written by the group with author Neil Strauss, Sixx recollects a night where a woman he knew pulled him into a small room at a party and the two began having sex. Soon after, Sixx left the room, returned with bandmate Tommy Lee and tricked the woman as to who she was having sex with. “We fucked for a while, then I told her I had to go to the bathroom. I went into the party and found Tommy,” Sixx wrote in the book. “‘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 fucking her.’”
“In the closet, I stood directly behind Tommy,” he continued. “He fucked her while she grabbed my hair and yelled, ‘Oh, Nikki! Nikki!’”
Sixx said that when he woke up the next morning, he didn’t remember the incident until the woman called him and told him she had been raped the night before. Though she said her attacker was a man who’d picked her up while she was trying to hitchhike home, Sixx said the story made him realize “that I had probably gone too far.” He continued, “At first, I was relieved, because it meant I hadn’t raped her. 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 first asked about this story during an interview with Rolling Stone, Sixx demurred and said, “There was a little embellishment here and there with Neil Strauss.” Strauss declined to respond, saying his contract prevented him from commenting.
In the statement Sixx later shared with Rolling Stone, he said he did not recall this particular story because The Dirt was being written “during a really low point in my life” where he was drinking and using drugs again to deal with a crumbling relationship. “I honestly don’t recall a lot of the interviews with Neil,” he said.
Sixx continued, “I went into rehab in 2001 and really wish I would’ve done my interviews after I was clean and sober like I am today… There is a lot of horrible behavior in the book. What I can tell you is that we all lived to regret a lot and learned from it. We own up to all our behavior that hurt our selves, our families, friends and any innocents around us.”
The Dirt was published in 2001 and will serve as the basis for an upcoming biopic of the same name, premiering March 22nd on Netflix. Though the incident was not included in the film, director Jeff Tremaine responded to it when asked by Rolling Stone, saying, “It gets dark. The book has dark moments in it. I think a lot of these stories back then did. The rock & roll lifestyle was a crazy time back then.”
Nikki Sixx’s Full Statement
“The book was written in 2000 during a really low point in my life. I had lost my sobriety and was using drugs and alcohol to deal with a disintegrating relationship which I still to this day regret how I handled..I honestly don’t recall a lot of the interviews with Neil.
I went into rehab in 2001 and really wish I would’ve done my interviews after I was clean and sober like I am today.
I don’t actually recall that story in the book beyond reading it. I have no clue why its in there other than I was outta my head and it’s possibly greatly embellished or made it up. Those words were irresponsible on my part. I am sorry.
There is a lot of horrible behavior in the book.
What I can tell you is that we all lived to regret a lot and learned from it.
We own up to all our behavior that hurt our selves, our families, friends and any innocents around us.”
Additional reporting by Kory Grow