Dirty Rocker Boys

by Brown, Bobbie; Ryder, Caroline

  “They are married, Bobbie.”

  In a furious daze, I called every journalist I knew and told them to come to my apartment. Within twenty minutes People magazine, Us Weekly, Star, and a camera crew from American Journal had shown up. They sat in front of me, expectant and slightly confused. I tried to steady my nerves. I didn’t want to cry in front of them. “I would like to inform the press that my fiancé, Tommy Lee, married Pamela Anderson on the beach in Cancún this afternoon. Perhaps you’d like to visit them to pass on my congratulations.” I told them the name of their hotel and their room number.

  “Don’t you want any money for this, Bobbie?” one of the journalists asked, and I said no. This wasn’t about money. This was about my heart, which had just been broken into a million pieces. American Journal wanted to interview me on camera. I shouldn’t have agreed, but I did. When the interview played on TV afterward, I was horrified. I was super skinny, crying, a mess. I never meant for the world to see me like that. I felt humiliated. But the humiliation had just begun.

  I watched the tragicomedy unfold on TV, in the tabloids, around the world. They called it a “Madcap Marriage.” I saw the photos of Pamela, barefoot and in a white bikini on the beach with Tommy, and eight guests, many of them my friends, lying on sun loungers holding cocktails in plastic cups while a Mexican guy in a white suit read their vows. Even behind her aviator sunglasses, I could tell Pamela was wasted. Bobby said they were all on ecstasy. Then they kissed, and Tommy tossed Pamela into the Caribbean. Sadly, she didn’t drown. Pamela’s own mother found out about the wedding by reading about it in People magazine. It was the first she had heard of Tommy Lee, and she called the whole thing “heartbreaking and shocking.” I knew exactly how she felt.

  Chapter Nine

  DOUCHE PARADE

  Biker coffee, glass, crank, whatever you want to call it—it’s a dirty chemistry that gives rise to speed. They make it in laboratories far, far away from Tinseltown; in trailers in Desert Hot Springs, or manufacturing plants in Guadalajara. Sudafed pills, Drano, lighter fluid, rubbing alcohol, paint thinner, red phosphorus from matchbooks, iodine, and battery acid create an inhumane and potent brew that leaves the user wide-eyed and sweaty, fingers tapping on tables, thoughts rushing with unhinged intensity. Life becomes the thing that happens in between key bumps in bathrooms, or breaking up lines with maxed-out cards. Then you grind your teeth on the dance floor as the flashing lights tell you things in languages only you can understand. Outside, the trees seem alive, clouds flicker like strobes, and the wind seems to quote lines from movies. The sun is always a little too bright. I was running while standing still, floating when I walked. The car rides, talking talking talking, the conversations that meant so much and would count for nothing the second I walked into my upper-middle-class condo in the Valley, remembering that my lover was with someone else. I wanted to scratch my nails down my cheeks until they bled.

  There was a knock at the door. I opened it, hoping it might be Tommy, saying this had all been a big prank, one of his jokes. But it was my mother, looking stern. “Tommy wrote me a letter, Bobbie, saying you are a drug addict. I’ve come to get Taylar because I don’t want my granddaughter around that nonsense.” I slammed the door in her face. “Fuck you! We’re fine!” I didn’t want my mom around, judging me, seeing what a failure I really was. But she kept knocking and knocking, until I let her back in. She was horrified at how skinny I was—around ninety pounds at the time. She told me how she had gotten Tommy’s letter the day before he married Pamela. “I wrote him back saying ‘fuck you,’ ” said my mom, who, as I mentioned before, almost never curses. “And I told him, ‘If anything bad happens to my daughter because of all this, I am going to hold you personally responsible.’ ” My mother took Taylar back to Louisiana with her. From that point, Taylar’s childhood would be a merry-go-round, with her going back and forth between L.A. and my mom’s, depending on how messed up I was over some guy, or the drugs. That’s the only true regret I have in my life: that thanks to drugs, “love,” and my own dysfunction, I was so rarely able to be the mother I wanted to be.

  As my mom left, she told me to pull myself together. “Get over it, Bobbie. He wasn’t good for you.” I wished getting over Tommy could have been that simple. I was on antidepressants but none of them worked. All I wanted to do was stay in bed in the fetal position and cry. The only thing that would get me moving was speed. At least when I was high, I had the energy to try to forge ahead with my day, even though the guy I was in love with had just gotten married and it was all over the news.

  Every time I left my apartment, there they were, on the newsstands. They were going out of their way to court every possible photo opportunity, and Pamela was all about the publicity. It was sickening. I felt like an unwilling observer, trapped in their romance, forced to watch them kiss every day, all day long. People would come up to me saying, “Hey, it’s really sad about Tommy,” which made me feel even worse. I didn’t want anyone feeling sorry for me.

  * * *

  “Bobbie? Bobbie, are you okay? Let us in!”

  It was my friend Annie, knocking on the front door. I opened the door, my face smeared with mascara. She was with her boyfriend Doug. They had just come from Tommy and Pamela’s wedding reception, where Doug, who I had introduced to Tommy, had been best man.

  Naturally, they felt guilty about having to split their loyalties. But I wasn’t angry, I was just grateful that they were there with me. “Pamela is such a retard,” said Annie, giving me a hug. The reception had been a lavish, over-the-top affair, with Tommy dressed in a suit of armor. “A suit of armor? That’s weird,” I sniffed, pouring more wine.

  Pamela had already been doing all she could to wipe me off the face of Hollywood. Playboy was already off-limits, thanks to her. Now, Baywatch. I had been on a series of auditions, vying for a role in the show, auditions that had started as Tommy and I were breaking up. Getting that part would have been a lifeline, a chance to start my career over. The producers could not decide between me and Gena Lee Nolin. Unsurprisingly, Pamela stepped in at the eleventh hour and told them there was no way she would work with me. It was understandable, but it wasn’t fair. The role went to Gena.

  At the wedding reception, Doug and Annie had met one of Tommy’s friends, a singer by the name of Mark McGrath. Mark was in a band called Shrinky Dinx (after the Shrinky Dinks toy), which would soon change its name to Sugar Ray. Mark had came over with Doug and Annie—I think they were hoping Mark might lift my spirits. Their instincts had been correct.

  “Girl, I would eat your pussy for eighteen hours straight, if it helped,” he said, moments after being introduced, startling me into laughter. Mark had zero filter. And he was funny. His inappropriate humor was bringing me out of my depressive funk for a minute. I wanted to see him again. “Mark, I have a modeling shoot tomorrow. Will you come with me?” I asked him at the end of the night. I just didn’t want to be alone. “Sure,” he said, without a thought, and I loved him immediately.

  Mark’s band Sugar Ray was not known yet, so he wasn’t busy, touring all the time like Tommy had been. We started hanging out every day doing silly mundane stuff: grocery shopping, picking up underwear at Sears. Stuff that helped me maintain some illusion of sanity. And of course, when the daytime chores had been taken care of, we partied. Mark and I were out at a club one night when a small brunette girl came up and tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, I’m Carin, Mark’s girlfriend.” What?! Mark hadn’t mentioned anything about having a girlfriend. Is this a joke? “I’m sorry,” I said. “For the record, there’s nothing going on between us. Maybe you need to talk to Mark about this, not me.” Mark walked up to us, looking guilty. For a second, I hated him. “You guys have fun working this out. I’m leaving,” I said, heading for the door. Is there any man in this town who isn’t a liar? I thought, hurt. Mark looked at me, then at Carin. Then at me and back at Carin. “I’m sorry, Carin, I’m going with Bobbie,” he said, darting after me. (They had no
t been dating for a long time, though he is married to her today.)

  “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.

  NIGHT MOVES

  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 be
en 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.