Dirty Rocker Boys (22 page)

It was the middle of 1999. My constant partying had taken its toll on my career and my bank account, and I was no longer able to afford my cute little town house. It was a cycle that would repeat itself over and over throughout the years. Because as much as speed makes you feel like you’re in control, what it’s actually doing is robbing your mind of the ability to make sane, rational decisions. You’ll brush your teeth for four hours but forget to open your mail. You’ll take on home-improvement projects but neglect to pay your rent. Now, thanks to speed, I was thirty years old and about to enter the transient, couch-surfy period of my life, relying upon the kindness of friends (and sometimes strangers) as I ping-ponged back and forth between well-intentioned sobriety and the inevitable relapse into Meth Land.

Tommy Lee had heard I was in trouble, and to my surprise, I found myself on the phone with him, discussing becoming his
roommate. It was surreal, and I wasn’t sure if my heart could handle it, but beggars can’t be choosers. “I just need somewhere temporary until I can get on my feet,” I told him on the phone, and he said, “Absolutely, come crash for as long as you need.” I asked him if Taylar could come too, and he said sure.
Thank fuck,
I thought, packing up boxes at the town house, breathing a sigh of relief. He and Pamela had divorced a year prior, in 1998, and he had spent time in jail for spousal abuse. I wondered if that experience had made him change.
Maybe this is his way of trying to make things up to me,
I thought.

Tommy was living in a huge house in a canyon close to Malibu. When I arrived, his two kids, Brandon and Dylan, were swimming in the pool. “Oh my God, look at your boys, Tommy!” I gasped. Brandon was very well-mannered, polite and shy, whereas the younger boy, Dylan, was more rambunctious, taking his shoe and beating Brandon with it, acting like a little badass. “He sure reminds me of you,” I said, and Tommy laughed.

As surreal as the thought of being roomies with my ex-fiancé was, it was the best (only) option I had, and I was grateful for his generosity. I brought a few suitcases of clothes over and went back to my place to pick up a few boxes before putting the rest of my belongings in storage. When I got back to Tommy’s house, I saw that my suitcases had been moved from the hallway.

“I put your stuff away for you,” said Tommy.

“Wait, where?”

“In my bedroom.”

Indeed, all my clothes and belongings were unpacked and hanging in his closet.

“Why did you do that?” I asked.

“My closet’s really big, don’t worry about it,” he said.

“Well, where am I supposed to sleep? Taylar’s coming soon—there’s a guest room for us, right?”

“You can sleep wherever you like, Bobbie, don’t sweat it. There’s plenty of room.”

I looked around the bedroom. It was impossible to miss the giant Chinese basket—a hammock-like sex swing—suspended from the ceiling by heavy steel chains. “Um, who’s the idiot getting in
that
thing?” I said. “Dude, you know that’s kind of cheesy, swinging around with your dick all over the place. What the fuck?” Tommy started cracking up, and it was just like old times again. I sat down on the edge of the bed. This was a lot for me to take in. I still felt intensely attracted to Tommy. But even though my crotch was saying yes, my head was saying no fucking way.

“Tommy, I’m really grateful you’re helping me out. I just don’t have a dime right now. Maybe I should have made a sex tape—you know, to boost my career.” It was an off-the-cuff comment, but Tommy’s eyes gleamed mischievously.

“Check this out,” he said, walking toward a table with a pile of documents on it. He grabbed something, smiled, and held it up in front of my face. It was a royalty check from the company that had put out the sex tape. The check was for a lot of money, six figures.

“Damn!” I said. “You asshole! So was that shit even for real?”
Something about the tape had always felt contrived to me. Not once had Tommy wanted to film us having sex. Yet after their tape was leaked online in 1996, it seemed like rather than harm Pamela’s career, it had made the public even more obsessed with her. When Pamela and Tommy sued the distribution company that had put it out there, Internet Entertainment Group, they were awarded $750,000 for their share of the profits. Not bad for a little home video. Tommy didn’t comment but shrugged his shoulders and winked.

This was all too much for me—all I knew was that I was tired and wanted to take a bath. Tommy said I could use his bathroom, which had a huge Jacuzzi.

“That sounds amazing! Thank you, Tommy.”

“Of course! I’ll be downstairs in my studio if you need anything.”

I lay in the tub, submerged in bubbles, and closed my eyes. The roar of the Jacuzzi jets was soothing, and I inhaled the soft scent of vanilla votive candles. My muscles relaxed and my headache disappeared. Finally, some peace and quiet.

“Hey, babe!”

I screamed and opened my eyes. Tommy was crouching next to the tub, holding two shots of Jäger, his head inches from mine.

“Wanna party?”

“No! Get out of here!”

“Oh, okay,” he said, pouting, leaving the room, downing both shots.

I was starting to realize that Tommy’s inviting me to move in had less to do with his good heart and more to do with his hard dick. He constantly came into my bedroom at night, trying to talk to me, or inviting me to go out with him. Every time, I said no. When I got phone calls, he would act jealous, like he was my boyfriend. To complicate matters, while I was staying with Tommy, Nikki Sixx, his bandmate, had started calling me, inviting me over to talk about his fashion line, which he wanted me to model for. Wisely, I refrained from mentioning anything to Tommy, but curiosity got the better of me and I went to Nikki’s house to find out what he had in mind. Well, let’s just say it wasn’t fashion. As soon as I arrived it was clear Nikki was not sober anymore. Instead of talking clothes, he wanted to hang out and party. So I got high in my way, and Nikki got high in his, while I read his tarot. When he tried to snuggle up to me, I made my excuses and left. What with having already dated Tommy and kissed John Corabi, I was in danger of hitting three-quarters of Mötley Crüe—a dubious accomplishment if ever there was one. (Nikki got back with his wife, Playmate and
Baywatch
star Donna D’Errico, shortly after that.) Meanwhile, life back at Tommy’s manor was devolving from cathartic to chaotic. Taylar (who was now eight years old) had arrived, and the two of us were holed up in the guest room that would become our Alamo. I told her I wasn’t sure how long we would be staying with “Dad Tommy” this time, and she didn’t seem too perturbed—it turned out she too was under attack.

“Mommy, Brandon won’t stop following me around,” she whispered. Tommy’s eldest son had developed a crush on her and was as clingy and demanding as his father, apparently. When Taylar said she felt sick and had to lie down, he would lie next to her saying, “I feel sick too,” staring at her with googly eyes, which grossed Taylar out (she was not into boys at all at this point) and caused Dylan, the younger son, to fly into insane fits of jealousy. I was running from Tommy, Taylar was running from Brandon, and Brandon was running from Dylan, who would inevitably be trying to hit him with a shoe. It was madness.

After a week or so of chasing me around his house, to no avail, Tommy finally got the hint. Insulted, he took revenge by inviting random girls over to stay the night, parading them in front of me, perhaps in a bid to rouse some kind of reaction.

“Um, don’t mind me,” I would say, knocking on the door in the morning, tiptoeing past Tommy and some girl in his bed, so I could get to my sweaters, which remained in his closet, at his insistence.

Then Tommy made things really uncomfortable: “No Weenie in the house,” he announced. Weenie was my dachshund, and after Taylar, she was my main squeeze. Tommy said Weenie could stay in the garage, which was not cool with Weenie, who was used to cuddling up in bed with me at night. Taylar and I
would sneak Weenie in to sleep with us every night and hide her under the covers until morning. Then Tommy found out (Dylan, we believe, was the informant), and told us Weenie now had to sleep in the car. It felt like Tommy was just being mean, and it was bringing back bad memories of our breakup. Two weeks into our roommate arrangement, I sat Tommy down to talk.

“You know, Tommy, I’m so grateful that you have let us back into your life in this way, but it feels like maybe we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.” I didn’t want to have to put a chair against my bedroom door to stop Tommy from bursting in at night, which he had done a couple times. Of course I was still in love with him. But it didn’t seem like his feelings had the same depth as mine. I was starting to feel like some disposable dial-a-girlfriend, a plaything to pass the time with. That was something I could never be, especially not with Tommy. His reaction was less understanding than I had hoped. “If you’re not happy, feel free to leave, Bobbie,” he said, as cold as he had been playful just a few days earlier. I was crestfallen at the thought of packing up my life again. But it was obvious, yet again, that Tommy and I just couldn’t be together. It never seemed to work. And knowing how Tommy liked to keep his exes close, I had a feeling Pamela would be coming around again. Except this time she was still a major star with a solid career, and I was a drug addict part-time model looking for couches to crash on. I doubted Tommy would show me any more loyalty than he had the first time he discarded me for her.
Why on earth would
I want to put myself through that pain and humiliation a second time?
I thought. I may have been a fuckup, but I wasn’t a masochist.

After leaving Tommy’s, me, Taylar, and Weenie stayed at Bobby Hewitt’s house for a weekend, and then I sent Taylar back to Louisiana to stay with my mom. I went from house to house for a month or so and stayed at Sharise’s for a while, and then went back to Louisiana myself. Because my life and all my “friends” were in L.A., I would bounce back and forth, crashing with people in L.A. and then going back to Baton Rouge as soon as my welcome—or my nerves—wore out. Whichever came first. I was living life day to day, hit to hit, waiting for something, someone to save me.

I was still celibate. It was like the Ice Age down there—that part of me felt like it had shut down.

In some ways, my sexual hibernation was symptomatic of a deeper illness. It was a defense mechanism in response to the chaos that my life had become. I no longer respected myself. I was couch surfing, in and out of various apartments. I was fucking off at work and not prioritizing. I hated not having a home, not having stability, not being the mother I wanted to be, and I hated that I had had so much and lost it all. When you’re carrying around that much self-loathing, it is impossible to feel attractive enough to be genuinely intimate with another person. At least, that’s how it was for me. The part of my heart that
trusted men enough to be open to them physically had almost completely atrophied. Guys were still pursuing me, and I knew I was still beautiful. But love was no longer something I could even relate to. In many ways, I blamed love for all the pain of the past five years.

Amid the darkness glowed a distant light—Dave Navarro. He had the confidence of Tommy Lee and the intelligent sensitivity of Jani Lane. It was a potent combination. He was damaged, more damaged than I, which made me feel safe somehow. I felt like he understood me. Whenever I was in L.A., I spent time at his place, which, for a junkie’s house, was extraordinarily clean and well ordered. In fact, it was very comfortable. The upstairs had a balcony that looked over all of Hollywood. Downstairs was the master bedroom, and when he was coming down off heroin, he would often ask me to just lie with him there because he felt sad. Sometimes we would say the same thing at the same time—it was like we thought the same thoughts. He would have been my perfect boyfriend had we not both been so fucked-up on drugs.

Dave was still deeply affected by the death of his mother, a beautiful blond former model, Constance Colleen Hopkins, who was devoted to her son. She was murdered by her boyfriend, John Riccardi, in March 1983. Dave, who believed in a lot of pagan iconography, felt that unicorns were representative of motherhood and kept many unicorny things around the house. He even had a unicorn sock puppet, which he was very attached to. One time, my brother, Adam, was waiting
for me on the couch when Dave, who was hiding behind the grand piano, pranked him with the sock puppet. “Hello,” said the unicorn, popping out from behind the piano. My brother nearly jumped out of his skin. The unicorn carried on in a high-pitched warble. “Let’s sing a Prince song!
This is what it feels like when doves cry
.” A few days later, Dave showed up at my house with the sock puppet. He snuck around the side of my house to my brother’s bedroom window (he was staying with me at the time). My brother heard a tapping on the window and was horrified to see the unicorn was back. Dave had a wicked sense of humor. Had he not been one of the worst junkies I had ever met, I might not have been so hesitant about him. It may sound hypocritical, because I was an addict too, but the needles—they creeped me out.

Adam had moved into my house in the Valley a few months after I befriended Dave Navarro. After graduating high school, he had come for a visit and basically never left. In return for living at my place for free, he took care of Taylar. He was her “manny.” He would wake up in the morning and take her to school and I would pick her up in the afternoons. When I was too fucked-up to think straight, Adam would pick up the slack. Taylar loved him, and to this day, they remain close.

Adam knew I was using, but he would never say anything, because he knew how defensive I could be about my addiction.
If I was acting up or acting weird, he would just ignore me or look at me like I was insane and not say anything, and that would normally make me snap out of my crazy behavior for a few minutes.