1989.09.08 - Los Angeles Times - Feud Between Rockers Boils Over Backstage at MTV Awards

[...]

Rival metal moguls Guns N' Roses appear.

"You know what happens next,” says Sixx. "Pow. Right in the face.”

The Gunners walked offstage, and Motley singer Vince Neil socked Gunner guitarist Izzy Stradlin in the kisser.

Sixx, 30, the Crue’s soft-spoken and surprisingly eloquent bassist-lyricist, explains that the problem began a year ago. Neil's wife, Sharise, was singing at a local club and, charges Sixx, was harassed by Stradlin.

"He pulled her top off, and kicked her in the stomach. Vince was going to press charges, but instead said, 'The next time I see him I’m going to clean his clock.’

[...]

[...]

Tell me about your fight with Guns N’ Roses at the MTV awards.

VN: “I just punched that dick (Izzy Stradlin’) and broke his f**king nose.”

Why?

VN: “Anybody who beats up on a woman deserves to get the shit kicked out of them. He hit my wife, a year before I hit him. I called up his management after he hit her and Alan Niven (GN’R manager) was like, 'My bands can do anything they want. Guns can do anything they want’. So I’m like, fine...

“I went looking for Izzy and I couldn’t find him, so I waited to the next time I saw him. That was when I was leaving and he was just coming offstage, 'cos he’d been jamming with Tom Petty. So I walked up to him and f* *king bopped him."

Alan Niven issued a statement saying you were ‘a powder puff and that you ran away after you’d hit Izzy.

VN: “Oh yeah, f**king listen to this guy. For one thing, he wasn’t even around. I f**king punched him and event security dived on me, because they didn’t know who the f**k I was.

“They threw me over towards the stairs and I’m trying to get at Izzy and he’s trying to get at me. The security told me to get out, so I walked past Izzy and I said, ‘Touch her again and I’ll f**king kill you, man’. I walked right past Axl, past all of them and out. I didn’t f* *king run.

“As far as I’m concerned, it’s not a Crüe v Guns thing, it was something this f* *king wimpy asshole who likes to hit girls deserved. It’s a score I had to settle.”

[...]

Sharise: [The Cathouse] was so fun that I was not allowed to go there without my husband. It was forbidden.

Bobbie: Because so many famous rock stars were there all the time.

[...]

Sharise: [...] Anyway, so I was forbidden to go there. The bras that we wore – we also made our own clothes, me and my girlfriends.

Bobbie: Wow, I didn’t do that.

Sharise: Yeah, we had this thing called “The Broad Squad” and it was all the girls from Tropicana. We were like a clique. And my girlfriend was actually dating Riki Rachtman. She was his living girlfriend. [...] So I wasn’t allowed to hang out with them, hardly ever, and definitely not allowed to go to the Cathouse with them, because bad things were gonna happen. [...] So, this night, I wore one of my creations, which was like a pencil skirt made out of spandex, black. And then, up to the side I did a sheer nylon panel, where you could see the side of my legs. [...] And then I wore, like, a little half-top. I made that too, by the way. [...] My husband was out of town. It was the only reason I got to go to the Cathouse that night. [...] He was on a water rafting trip with my father, and there was no cell phones back then. He could not find out a) that I wasn’t home and b) that I was at the Cathouse.

Bobbie: Oh my God, did he find out eventually?

Sharise: Well, this is what happened.

Bobbie: Okay. So let’s hear what happened.

Sharise: [...] Like I said, we were the “Broad Squad”. My girlfriend’s boyfriend, it was his damn club. We walked in like we owned the place. [...] So my girlfriends and I were at the dance floor. And they said, “Go request a song for us,” and I was like, “Okay.” So I run upstairs to request the song for us. It was probably Prince’s Purple Rain or, I don’t know, Welcome to the Jungle, cuz we were all huge Guns N’ Roses fans. Guns N’ Roses had just been out on the tour, opening up for my husband’s band. [...] So I get to the deejay booth, which was upstairs in its own room. I walk into the room, and I see Izzy Stradlin standing by the deejay. He tells me to come over to him, he waves me over. I say, “Oh, cool, Izzy.” You know, we just got off the road with them, I met all the guys, I was out with them, I thought they all knew me, we were all talking, hanging out, shaking hands... So when I get within a foot of him, he reaches down – Riki says this wrong on his show; he says that he grabbed by boob. No, no, no. Izzy reaches down and grabs my freshly made pencil skirt and rips it up, like, to my vagina, and trying to rip it off me.

Bobbie: Why?!

Sharise: I was shocked. I literally thought he was gonna say, “Hey Sharise, how’s the band? Is Vince here with you?” “Hi, Sharise, good to see ya.” No. He rips my skirt up. And I’m flabbergasted. My mouth falls and I smack him hard across his face. A fuckin’ roundhouse smack to the face, buddy. When I do that to him, he puts his foot up and he kicks me in the stomach away from him.

Bobbie: WHAT?

Sharise: He kicked me.

Bobbie: WHAT?!

Sharise: Yeah, he did.

Bobbie: Oh my God!

Sharise: Alright. Now you’ve unleased mean Sharise. Now I’m pissed, and I got my bony little finger in his face going, “Fuck you. Who the fuck do you think you are? How fuckin’ dare you touch me? Wait till my fuckin’ husband gets up,” or, you know, “gets a word of this.” [...] Don’t do that to a woman.

Bobbie: What was he thinking?

Sharise: Okay, so then, after I’m done with my tirade, I turn around and I see Axl sitting in a chair in the corner - I think my tirade must have been heard all over the club – and he just came in. He wasn’t there before when I walked in, but I think he saw what happened after. So I said to him, “What the fuck is wrong with him?” And Axl, very nicely, said, “Oh my god, he’s really fucked up. He’s fuckin’ on heroin.” I went, “I don’t care. Wait till Vince finds out. This is not gonna be good.” At that point Riki says that Randy - you know, my best friend and also his girlfriend – said, “You gotta kick that fuck out! You better kick him out! Kick him out!” And so Riki was put in the position at kicking out his friend Izzy – he was very close with Axl and Izzy – or his girlfriend’s best friend who was kicked and assaulted. So Riki says in his podcast, “I did nothing.”

Bobbie: “So I did nothing.”

Sharise: “So I did nothing.” He didn’t know what to do. And I love Riki. I’m very good friends with Riki still to this day.

Bobbie: Yeah, me too.

Sharise: So I had to sit on that for, like, another three days, till Vince finally called me; they finally got to a town where he could call me. He was like, “Hey, how’re you doing?” and I was like, “I have to tell you something. I went to the Cathouse.” “WHAT? You’re not allowed to go at the Cathouse.” I had to be like, “Oh, it was (?) birthday” - I, like, made up a lie. “It was (?) birthday. I couldn’t miss her birthday. And in the meantime, I got assaulted by Izzy Stradlin, who kicked me and tried to rip my skirt of me.” And by the way, I don’t even know if I was wearing underwear that night, because that sheer panel was there. [...] So I tell him, and he goes ballistic: “He did what? I’m gonna kill that guy!” So that is the start of the fight between Axl and Vince and Izzy.

Bobbie: But why Axl? Why did Axl get involved? I’m just confused. Didn’t he hit Axl or something?

Sharise: Here’s the thing: I couldn’t understand how Axl wasn’t sensitive to what happened, because it was obviously his friend’s wife and he saw what happened. Of course a man is gonna stick up for his woman and he’s gonna, you know, revenge the situation.

Bobbie: So what did eventually happen?

Sharise: So they started talking shit. Vince started talking shit about Izzy in the press, that, you know, “He assaulted my wife.” And then Axl jumps in and starts sticking up for Izzy, which I never understood. So shit talk started between Axl and Vince. And then what happened was – it was the MTV Awards or something.

Bobbie: Yeah, it was the MTV Awards.

Sharise: It was the MTV Awards, yeah - Riki says this wrong too in his podcast, but don’t worry, Riki, I’ll come at your show and we’ll talk about it. So, there I guess Tom Petty was on stage, and then Guns N’ Roses were doing the last show of the night, they were doing a song; or Izzy and a couple of the band members were playing with Tom Petty. So Vince – this has been, like, six months since this happened, and Vince has not run into Izzy at all, or Axl. But there they are that night! [...] So now Vince is plotting, “How can I get back at him,” like, “Oh, he’s on stage now. Sharise, go to the car.” I’m like, “What are you gonna do?!” and he’s like, “Don’t worry about it. Go to the car.” So this is what I remember: I was sitting in the limo, waiting, waiting, waiting... And I’m looking behind me, and what I see is hilarious. I see Vince walking very briskly and then running towards the car: “Open the door! Open the door!” I’m like, “What’s going on?” Then I see Axl running after Vince with, like, two big black bodyguards following. Vince gets to the car and he tells the driver, “Go!” So now we’re taking off in the parking lot as Axl is running behind our car. I mean, that’s a scene.

Bobbie: That’s hilarious.

Sharise: That should have been in the movie.

Bobbie: So what did he say?

Sharise: He said, “I broke his fucking nose.”

Bobbie: Whose?

Sharise: Izzy. I said, “You did what?” He said, “I waited for him, and when he walked off stage, I said, ‘Hey Izzy, this is for my wife,’ and I hit him in his face and I broke his nose.”

Bobbie: Oh my god! And then Axl went running after him?

Sharise: And then Axl got really pissed, and that’s when it heated up in the press, I think, with Vince going, “I’ll meet you anytime and anywhere, buddy,” and then Axl saying something about wanting to go in some deserted island and dwell to the death.

Bobbie: What? That’s stupid.

Sharise: It was epic. They wanted to fight each other. Vince wanted to run a ring and (?) televise it. It was all over just me trying to order up a song in a deejay booth.

Bobbie: Wow, that’s interesting. That’s some crazy shit, man.

Sharise: And from then on, you know, Vince hated Guns N’ Roses.

Bobbie: Well, I never knew that that’s why. And he had just cause, at least. I mean, how dare that guy? Who does he think he is?

Sharise: Yeah. I mean, he was an addict. And he didn’t even remember the next day, I’m sure.

Bobbie: Oh, he probably didn’t remember any of it. Probably.

Sharise: He was smoking a cigarette nodding out afterwards.

Bobbie: Oh, that’s horrible. Well, still, what inner demon do you have to have to make you do something like that?

Sharise: Well, this goes to what Dee Snider tweeted about heroin. [...] I don’t have any ill will towards Izzy. I mean, he was 23 and is probably a completely different person now.