Authors: Bobbie Brown,Caroline Ryder
“Why didn’t you tell me you had a girlfriend?” I asked Mark in the car. I was too tired to be angry.
“Dunno.” He shrugged.
“Why can’t you guys just be
honest
?”
“Because we suck?” said Mark, looking sheepish.
“Well, just be careful, I’m kind of vulnerable right now,” I said, sniffing. “You’re lucky I didn’t rip your balls off.”
I was trying to get my life back on track, but it was hard. I had to move out of my apartment because I could no longer afford it, and I was desperate for work. When my agency booked me a weeklong job in Miami, I breathed a sigh of relief. I was going to be good this time, no speed for Bobbie. I was a professional, and I was going to get my life together. In some misguided attempt to be responsible, I decided to use up all
my drugs in the few weeks before Miami, so at least I would be sober on the job. Bad idea. By the time I got to Miami I was so partied out, I realized I should have just brought the drugs with me just to keep me awake. But I didn’t have any left, and I didn’t have the money to score. The result? During the first day of shooting, I passed out during several shots, drooling as my eyes rolled into the back of my head. Then, when I went back to the hotel, I stayed up all night, writing poems with metallic Sharpie pens in my notebook, waking up covered in ink, the bedspread ruined because I had forgotten to put the lids back on the pens. A five-year-old would have had better sense. That day, I nodded off throughout the shoot, again. “That girl is on heroin,” muttered the photographer. The client called my agency saying I was on drugs.
I wished
. I was just sleep-deprived. On day three, unsurprisingly, they fired me, and I was sent home with a bill for the ruined bedspread. I flew to New Orleans in tears, planning to pick up my daughter and go back to L.A., but my dad met me at the airport and told me I wasn’t allowed to go to my mom’s and get Taylar until I had gotten myself straight. I flipped out.
“I want to be with my daughter!” I yelled, calling my mom from my dad’s house phone.
“No,” said my mom on the end of the line. “Not until you are sober. You’re staying at your dad’s until you get yourself together, Bobbie.”
My dad put me to bed, and I slept for five days straight. When I woke up, I was ravenous. “That’s some, ahem, flu you had there, girl,” said my dad, watching me pour my third bowl
of Lucky Charms. I glared at him. Of course, he was aware of my problems, but he knew better than to confront me about my addiction at this point. I stayed with my poppa for two weeks, watching
Oprah
, eating carbs, and crying, until I finally regained my senses, my sobriety, and a couple of pounds. “You know, this is the most time we’ve spent together since your momma kicked me out,” said my dad as he hugged me good-bye, a tear in his eye. “Just remember you’re not alone in this, Bobbie. You’re not alone.” I don’t know why I found it so hard to believe him.
I was at Grand Ville. I needed something.
Someone
. I looked around.
Let’s see . . . model, wannabe, model, actor, model, rocker, drug dealer, model.
What a douche parade. I hadn’t been with anyone since Tommy Lee, but now, finally, Bobbie Brown was open for business.
“I gotta say, I feel sorry for the first guy who sleeps with you,” said Sharise.
“Why?”
“Well, after Tommy, he’s going to have to nail his dick to a two-by-four just to keep it from falling out.”
“Ha-ha, very funny,” I said, noticing a cute guy in the corner. “Wait, who’s
that
?”
Standing with the actor/club promoter BoJesse Christopher was a beautiful man with dark hair and icy blue eyes that seemed to glow. BoJesse introduced us: His name was Jason,
and he was a model. I made it clear that I was available, and a few hours later, Jason was massaging my back on my bed. As his fingers kneaded my shoulders, I drifted into a deep sleep. When I woke up, he was kissing me, grinding on top of me, and making moaning sounds.
“Arghgh!”
Why is he making that noise?
I wondered. He groaned even louder.
“Orghgh!”
Then he rolled over and lit up a cigarette. “That was so amazing, baby.” It took me a second to figure it out. I had not even realized that I was being fucked. I ran into the bathroom, and checked myself. Was it a black hole, incapable of sensation?
Jesus, maybe Sharise was right! Maybe Tommy had stretched me beyond the point of no return!
I was so horrified, I told Jason to get out. I couldn’t believe that this was how my first time after Tommy had gone down. I didn’t feel victorious—I felt cheated. Of course, poor Jason was completely confused by my sudden change of attitude.
“No, we’re not going to snuggle, Jason. You got what you wanted, now beat it!” I had never been this mean to a lover before, in my life.
“Are you joking, Bobbie?” Jason said, looking hurt.
“Do I
look
like I’m joking? You better be out of here by the time I count to five.” Jason called me all the next day, and when I finally picked up, I was businesslike. “State your purpose,” I said. Being a bitch felt empowering.
Somehow, Jason and I remained friends and years later, over lunch, he decided to reminisce about our one night of “passion.”
“You know . . . when you and I had sex, it was pretty wild and crazy,” he said, with a half smile.
I said, “Jason, you’re kidding, right? Bless your heart, you need to get out more.”
I wasn’t trying to be a dick. I swear.
Next!
Leonardo DiCaprio, some model dude, the actor Billy Wirth, some singer, Kevin Costner, some hip-hop dancer—whether it was kisses or blow jobs or promises or druggy nights or shitty sex, I could barely keep track of all the men in my field of vision. They all looked the same to me now. Even the ones I had known for years. Thankfully, after my numbed-out experience with Jason, I had begun to actually feel the sex I was having. But I spent a blurry, shut-down year of my life inviting men into my world and then casting them aside the following morning, or not long after, usually in the cruelest manner possible. Fucking the douche parade as a means of revenge was not my lowest point; rather, it became just one in a series of poorly thought-out coping strategies. I just couldn’t think up any other way to shut out my anger. So I fucked the pain away instead.
In 1996, less than a year after Tommy wed Pamela, their sex tape came out, rubbing salt into my still-raw wounds. I couldn’t go anywhere without some asshole putting it on the VHS. I’d be at party, go to the bathroom, and then come out to the sound of Pamela squealing.
“I love you, Tommy!”
Ugh, not again.
They were on a yacht. She was grasping for his dick with her long, manicured nails. It made me want to hurl.
“Whip it out. Whip it
out
!”
Oh, there was the house Tommy and I were supposed to move into.
“This is our house,” said Pamela. “When are you going to get me preggos?”
Now she’s giving him head in the car. Road dome. Classy.
I couldn’t believe Tommy would have filmed all this. He never once expressed any interest in filming our sex life. I assumed it must have been Pamela’s idea. She had made a sex tape with Bret Michaels too, and I had seen the footage of her sucking him off, naked on the bed, to the sound of some atrocious heavy metal. That video was just funny. This, on the other hand, was painful.
“Fuck, I’m so fucking horny,” says Tommy. Then they pull over and have sex on the side of the road. “I love you, I love you, I love you,” Tommy says into the camera, mouthing the words. “He has a huge fucking wenis. And big balls,” says Pamela, before the film cuts to Tommy’s huge fucking wenis entering her perfectly-shaved pussy.
Wonderful.
Around the same time, in 1996, Jani remarried. Even though I had never seriously contemplated reuniting with him, his moving on somehow made me feel even more alone. His second wife was Rowanne Brewer, a former Miss Maryland,
who gave birth to their daughter, Madison, the following year. I knew Rowanne from the modeling circuit, and we had been friends when I was married to Jani. We shot a Budweiser commercial together, and I remember thinking she was attractive and friendly. When I was with Tommy, I heard that she was hitting on him, which upset me. Then, next thing you know, she marries Jani.
I guess we have similar taste
in men,
I thought. Jani had been drinking since our divorce, and, from what I heard, was drunk for the majority of his marriage with Rowanne. Even at a distance, Jani’s dysfunction depressed me. He was still the father of my child, after all.
Pamela filed for divorce from Tommy in November 1996.
Figures,
I thought, remembering how quickly Tommy had devolved from handsome Prince Charming into mini dictator when we were together. Days after news of the divorce broke, Tommy called me. My hand trembled as I gripped the phone and heard what he had to say. I had missed him so much. He said wanted to make amends. Would I be willing to see him? I hadn’t talked to Tommy since our breakup, and there had been no closure whatsoever. Maybe Pamela filing for divorce had been some kind of wake-up call. Maybe this would help me heal. Maybe we would get back together. Of course, that was what I was hoping for. I was still desperately in love with him.
I left a note for my brother, who was staying with me, on the coffee table. “I’m not going to be home tonight, I’ll be at Tommy’s—explain later.”
I arrived at Tommy’s house in Malibu—the house Tommy
and I were supposed to move into. Tommy seemed upbeat. It was weird. It had taken all the emotional strength I had to even be there, and even more just to look him in the eye. I was still so heartbroken. But he was behaving like nothing had ever happened. “Let’s go upstairs!” he said. “I want to show you the beanbag room.”
The beanbag room. Okay.
The beanbag room had a floor that was entirely soft and squishy. They used it as their movie room, I guess. I stepped in and started laughing, surprised by the odd sensation. Out of the blue, Tommy lunged at my feet and tackled me to the soft floor.
“Look at that ass!” he said, flipping me over. Then he put his face in between my ass cheeks and made motorboat noises, before collapsing in giggles.
“What the fuck!” I screamed. I fought back the tears.
“What’s wrong, dude?” said Tommy, confused. The playful energy in the room vanished as I unloaded my hurt.
“Last time I saw you we were engaged; then you dumped my ass and married Pamela! Now you’re putting your face in my ass? What the
fuck
! Why do you have to be such a
child
!”
Tommy told me not to cry and tickled me. I couldn’t help but break into laughter in between tears. Tommy’s casual demeanor was luring me into a false sense of security. He had always been so good at that, at joking away the pain. Tommy cuddled me and said he wanted me to stay the night. I looked around the room—the decor was feminine, there were knickknacks I knew didn’t belong to him. I could feel Pamela in the room with us. It felt creepy.
“I don’t think so, Tommy.” But Tommy Lee gets what Tommy Lee wants. Almost.
I ended up staying. We didn’t sleep together, we didn’t even kiss. But we laughed all night long, until at some point in the wee hours, he fell asleep. I was high, of course, and just lay there, mind racing, heart pounding. When dawn broke, I wrote him a note, left it on the pillow, and tiptoed out. “Had a good time, got to go, bye.”
After that he came over to my place one day; another night we went to a party. Still, nothing sexual happened, but he was calling me every day. I started to wonder . . . could I do this again with Tommy? Was there a chance for us? One day he called and said he had to go out of town to do something with Snoop Dogg for a few days. I didn’t hear from him again. I read that he had gotten back with Pam. Within two weeks of filing for divorce, she had called it off, and all was forgiven. As I struggled to process the hurt and anger of being rejected a second time, I thanked God I hadn’t allowed anything to happen between Tommy and me. Because that would have fucking annihilated me.
(It wouldn’t be too long before Pamela would file for divorce a second time. In early ’98, Tommy was led from their house in Malibu in handcuffs after Pamela accused him of attacking her as she held their two-month-old second son, Dylan. Tommy went to jail for four months for spousal battery. Again, I wasn’t surprised.) I cried myself to sleep for a few nights at my town house in the Valley, cursing myself for letting Tommy back in,
even for just a second. And then I got back to what I knew best—the club scene and my new best friend, crystal meth.
At first I liked crystal because it made me skinny. Then I liked crystal because it had become part of my daily routine.
Wake up, brush teeth, feed dog, do bump.
One hit would last me about eight hours, and it wasn’t even expensive. Unlike coke, this seemed like a healthy habit to have.
This doesn’t feel like a problem at all,
I told myself, admiring my figure in the mirror, enjoying the energetic high I felt every day.
I had been sober, off of coke for five years when someone offered me a line and I figured it couldn’t hurt. Then I remembered why cocaine didn’t agree with me. The comedowns, for me, were suicidally awful. I felt depressed and guilty. I could never sleep properly because all I wanted was more coke. I would need another line, need another line, need another line. Coke would make me want to stay locked in with the lights low, talking about stupid shit that didn’t mean dick for hours, saying creepy shit and doing creepy shit. I didn’t want to go out into the daylight and accomplish my goals, hell no. With crystal, things were different. When the high fades, you just pass out cold because you are so tired from being up for three, four, five days straight. On speed, I was more than happy to leave the house and run errands, which I enjoyed so much more than the whole dungeon vibe of cocaine nights. But, as energetic as the speed made me, there was a downside. Speed brain.