Dirty Rocker Boys

by Brown, Bobbie; Ryder, Caroline

  I scheduled a lunch meeting with Lorraine and her partner, Lisa, and they told me about their idea. A reality show, starring me, Sharise Neil, Heidi Mark (another ex-wife of Vince Neil’s, who would, at the last minute, be replaced on the show by Tommy’s sister, Athena Lee) and Blue Ashley, ex-wife of Warrant’s Jerry Dixon. The show would be called Ex-Wives of Rock and would document the real ups and downs of us former mistresses of the Sunset Strip.

  “I love it!” I said, imagining how much fun it would be to reunite with the girls. Amid all the drama that had occurred in our lives, Sharise, Athena, Blue, and I had lost touch. Luckily, all the girls were on board. It had been a long and winding road, but the ex-wives were reunited and ready to rock.

  Finally, our lives seemed to be on the up. Jani was sober again and had remarried, and Taylar and I were obviously delighted about that. Jani’s new wife was Kimberly Nash, whom he had known since the Warrant days (they had dated briefly after he and I split, then when he married Rowanne, Kimberly was busy having a baby with Warrant’s keyboard player. Now, years later, they had rekindled). I would regularly visit at Jani and Kim’s home, and things seemed to be going well. We spent Thanksgiving 2010 all together as the funny, disjointed family we had become. Taylar, who was living full-time in Louisiana, had flown into town with her boyfriend, and together with my brother, Adam, we all went over to Kim and Jani’s home, and Jani cooked Thanksgiving dinner. He actually seemed happy, for once. That was the last time I would see him alive.

  He had been sober nearly two years when Kim called and said he had started drinking again. And it was worse than ever before. He was falling, injuring himself, because he was so disoriented. The alcohol had destroyed his ability to look after himself or those around him. In July 2011, Jani called me, distraught. Things were not going well with Kim, and he asked me if he could move into my downstairs guest apartment. I told him no, the apartment was in poor condition, plus I had a boyfriend who might not be comfortable with my ex-husband moving in with us. Oddly, that seemed to amuse him.

  “You have a boyfriend? That’s hilarious, Bobbie. You haven’t had a proper boyfriend in forever.”

  “Shut up, Jani!”

  It was a moment of levity in a year of darkness.

  MY SWEET CHERRY PIE

  Looking back, the writing was on the wall. Jani was going to rehab every other month, getting sober and then getting drunk, trying to leave his wife and then going back. He had started seeing his ex-girlfriend Sheila again, in between going back and forth with Kim. His life was a mess, and even Jani knew, perhaps, that he might not be able to clean up again this time.

  His decline was hard on all of us, but especially Taylar. After our divorce, Jani hadn’t been around much, probably because of all the bitterness he harbored toward me. Jani did pay child support but never gave Taylar much beyond the bare minimum, and me, my mother, and Mr. Earl had been almost entirely financially responsible for her when it came to saving up money for college and other expenses. Jani tended to spend money on himself and on his binges, and for years, he hadn’t had much time for Taylar. He had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and of course he had his well-documented battles with alcohol—as much love as he had for her in his heart, his demons had consistently prevented him from ever being truly there for Taylar.

  By the time Jani started reaching out to her, during the last five years of his life, Taylar was still angry with him. “Taylar, you don’t understand, people keep giving me alcohol, and I’m helpless against it,” he would say, trying to explain his problems. But Taylar wouldn’t stand for his excuses. “Come on, Dad. You have to be accountable for your own actions,” she would say.

  Jani missed her terribly. He had written a song dedicated to Taylar called “Stronger Now” and had gotten a heart and banner tattoo that said DADDY’S GIRL. Jani often called Taylar when he was drunk, to tell her that he loved her, promising her that he would get sober. Of course, he was never able to fulfill the promise for any length of time, and Taylar, now nineteen, had had enough. She felt like the best way she could help her father was by showing him tough love.

  “Dad, don’t contact me anymore if you’re drunk,” she told him. “I will only talk to you if you are sober.” I understood where she was coming from. But I wasn’t sure it was the right approach, somehow. “You know what, Tay, you never know how long your dad will be here,” I told her. “He’s reaching out to you. He feels really guilty, and he does love you.” I felt that Jani only felt able to open up emotionally and let go of his ego when he was drunk. “Drinking is the only way he knows to remove his filter,” I told Taylar, and she nodded.

  On August 11, 2011, I was taking a nap, half-asleep, floating between dreamland and consciousness. I felt someone move my hair out of my eyes and touch my face. I thought it was Damon, my boyfriend. “Stop, baby, you’re waking me up,” I groaned, eyes still closed. Slowly, I woke up, charged with an inexplicably sad panic. I looked around for Damon and he wasn’t there. I called him, crying.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he said.

  “I want us to be good to each other, always. Life is so fleeting, Damon. What if something happens to you?”

  “Babe, I’m fine, we’re fine. I’ll be home soon.”

  “Wait—you weren’t just here touching my face and hair?”

  “No, I left the house hours ago.”

  At almost exactly the same time, Jani was dying. His wife, Kim, called me the next day with the news—Jani had been found dead of acute alcohol poisoning at the Comfort Inn hotel in Woodland Hills. The cleaner found his body. Someone had checked him in, not under his name, the night before. He didn’t have a driver’s license or a phone with him. The DO NOT DISTURB sign had been left on the door. I asked Kim if I could go with her to the hotel, where his body was, and she said no. Then I hung up. The next call I made would be to Taylar.

  How do you tell a teenage girl that her father, who she has just started building a relationship with, has killed himself with alcohol? What words could possibly lessen the blow? It wasn’t fair that this had to be Taylar’s reality. I had been blessed with not one but two fathers, both of whom I had achieved genuine love and closeness with. I was glad that Taylar had at least been able to build some relationship with Jani, no matter how strained it had been.

  She was in her car, driving to her home in Baton Rouge, when I called.

  “Taylar, I’m so sorry, but your dad died yesterday.”

  “What?” She thought she hadn’t heard me right. “What did you say, Mom? I’m driving I can’t really hear you.”

  “Pull over,” I said, and I repeated the words. She was in shock. For a few moments, she didn’t speak at all. Eventually, she whispered, “Let me call you back.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah.” And then she hung up.

  Earlier that day, she had been looking through old photos of her and Jani and had laid them out in her bedroom so she could figure out which ones to take to her new apartment. Jani’s smiling face, strewn across the carpet. Her father, whom she so resembled, was dead. We cried together on the phone. “At least I’ll see him every day when I look in the mirror,” she said.

  To this day, the circumstances surrounding Jani’s death remain unclear. He had completed his will and divorce papers and was waiting for them to be notarized when he died. Somebody had checked him into the hotel under an alias, and we do not know who that person was. He did die of ethanol poisoning, but at least one other person was present. I would like to find out who that was.

  The news of Jani’s death came in the middle of filming the first season of Ex-Wives of Rock. Because it is a reality show, the cameras captured some of what happened. Not for the first time in my life, I was grateful for the support of my longtime friends. Because no matter how self-destructive Jani had been over the past few years, I never once imagined he would die so soon. He was forty-seven years old, and his death left a huge hole in our lives. Jani had defined the most precious
period of my youth, and our love had produced the most important person in my life—Taylar. I had always hoped and prayed that Jani would be strong enough to survive himself, in the same way I had said the same prayers for myself. In the end, though, prayers just weren’t enough.

  Athena Lee was a great support to me in this time. She had become one of my closest friends thanks to the show, which had allowed us to rekindle the friendship that we started nearly twenty years prior, when I was dating Tommy and living in Malibu.

  Athena held my hand through the tears, helping me stay as strong as I could for Taylar. She told me she felt like she wasn’t that far behind Jani, because of her own struggles with alcohol. She had already lost her mother and her father, her husband had left her for another woman, and her breast cancer had come back, temporarily. Since she and Tommy are no longer close, I became like family to Athena, and she to me. Now, more than ever, we needed our friends to help us through such trying times.

  I’m a very different Bobbie Brown now from the Bobbie Brown she met in Malibu. Back then I was colder, tougher, and more prideful. These days, I’m much more of a softy. I tear up at dog food commercials, for crying out loud. Tough and sassy as I may appear on the outside, I am the biggest fucking wimp in the world, a side of me that came out after my dad died, and after Jani’s death too. For so many years, my life had been a whirlwind, decisions fueled by this unearned sense of ego, by this anger at the men who were constantly letting me down. The Bobbie Brown who would act out because of her anger was reckless, foolhardy, and arrogant. It took some very traumatizing experiences to steer me off that path. Today, I know what’s really important to me. It’s not revenge. It’s not drugs. Its not fame or money. It’s friendship and family. That’s it. And when the time came for me to let go of my relationship with Damon, Athena was there to help me mop up the tears.

  I’m proud that Athena, Sharise, Blue, and I are taking the scars we earned on the Sunset Strip and are showing them off to the world. Why not? We aren’t rich housewives living in mansions, fighting over Louboutin shoes. When the rock ’n’ roll dream fantasy died in the 1990s, it sent us spinning in different directions. Yet somehow, we find ourselves back together, living real lives, complete with beat-up cars and bad decisions. When the show started, I was ridiculed by people for being too real—being overweight, not looking as hot as I used to, having a messy house, or shooting scenes with no makeup on. Well, whatever. Yes, maybe I looked like shit. But guess what, that was real. Of course, it’s no fun reading online that some anonymous asshole in Indiana thinks you’re a “stupid skank ho.” It’s amazing, the people who hate you right out of the gate. They hate us because we were married to rock stars, which is not a realistic or fair reason to hate on anybody. You cannot judge a person without knowing what they have been through.

  When Tommy found out Athena and I were doing Ex-Wives of Rock, he was not impressed. “I can’t believe you and my sister are doing a fucking reality show,” he said. “I thought you were smarter than that.” He tried to talk us both out of it, probably because he was worried about me and my big mouth. But the show isn’t about the rock stars we dated and married. It’s about us, as women, today. I think he gets it now. It took my poor mom a second to come around to the show too, especially because in her opinion, I seemed hell-bent on airing all my dirty laundry, in front of all the people of Canada and America.

  “That girl has no filter!” she growled to my brother, Adam. “I’m so hurt. I’ve had enough of it!”

  Adam, ever the diplomat, advised me on how to handle the crisis.

  “Don’t worry about it; I’ll talk to Mom while I drive her to her hair appointment. While we’re out, leave her a voice mail on the landline saying that you’re sorry. By the time we get home, she’ll be receptive, I promise you.”

  Worked like a charm. My brother, who now works in television in Hollywood, is a natural-born superhero.

  It took a minute, but my mother came around to her daughter’s new career on TV. And I’m proud to be an Ex-Wife. I’m no one’s trophy babe, no one’s sidekick, no one’s punching bag anymore. I’m not hiding behind someone else, nor am I lost in the shadow of anyone else’s fame. This time, perhaps for the first time in my life, it’s just me being me. I can’t tell you how refreshing it feels to say that. And every time I start doubting myself, or start feeling like I might want to slip back into bad habits, I remember Jani. I remember how lucky I am to still be here. And I remember that our daughter needs me.

  LETTING GO

  Throughout the years Pam and Tommy were together, interviewers would often tell me things that she had said about me, trying to trick me into a reaction. “What do you think about Pam?” they would ask. “I don’t think about Pam,” would be my response. I was lying of course. Not caring, or pretending not to care, was the only way I could think of to cope with what had happened.

  I was at a Playboy Mansion party one year when I spotted her, a whirl of peroxide and hangers-on. As I walked past, Pamela and her group of friends started laughing really loudly. They were making fun of me. I paused and looked Pamela in the eye. “Grow the fuck up,” I said. And at that point, I realized I no longer cared. We are both in our forties now, for crying out loud. I haven’t run into her since then, but I have seen her on television, and I admire her at this point—she’s still beautiful and, let’s face it, she got everything she wanted. Kudos to her. It’s not a competition anymore. I mean—it never really was, until she started going after Tommy.

  Tommy was the dirty rocker boy I had spent so many years dreaming about. To this day, I can’t believe that the handsome face I pinned on my walls as a lovestruck teenager became the face I woke up next to, for one short, tumultuous year in the mid-1990s. As my momma always said, “Be careful what you wish for.” Maybe I should have listened to her. Because when it comes to boys, especially the kind you see roaming up and down the Sunset Strip, Momma is always right.

  She always liked Jani, though, despite his damage. We all knew that beneath the rocker façade beat a huge and tender heart. Even though he’s gone, I still feel Jani with me every day. Sometimes I get mad at him for dying, until I realize it wasn’t entirely his fault. I’m grateful I got a second chance at life. Jani could have had one too, but his wounds were, it turns out, even deeper than mine. And hopefully Jani’s friends and fans will always remember him as he was, an incredible talent, a true star. I really feel like he’s watching us. If he is, I hope he knows—cherry pie will always be my favorite.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to Adam Chromy for his belief in me and my story. To Caroline Ryder, thank you for “getting me” and knowing me so well, which made writing this book a breeze and so much fun. And thanks to Jeremie Ruby-Strauss and Emilia Pisani for making this book a reality. And to Jim Kuzmich. . . . I love you all.

  Hey guys,

  You’ve just read some crazy shit, but guess what—this isn’t a sob story. This is the tale of a perpetual self-saboteur—me—who, thanks to ignorance, youth, and naivety, ended up trapped in a never-ending life lesson. It took me longer than most to put those lessons behind me, and now that I have, I am grateful daily for the person I became because of those experiences. My past made me a person who is able to listen, help, and support others. My past humbled me, and taught me kindness. It made me aware that life is fleeting.

  They say “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and that’s an understatement as far as my life is concerned. But the strength I’ve gained is soft at its core. I don’t judge myself or the people who have been in my life. Having spent so many years trying to not feel and not to care, I am now a person who feels everything, and who cares. I care a lot.

  Thanks for letting me just rip that. LOL.

  Love, Bobbie

  My father, Bobby Gene Brown, as a rough and tumble youth.

  High school yearbook photo of my mother, Judy Ann Faul, age sixteen.

  Me, around age three.

  Me, around a
ge nine, holding my baby brother, Adam, almost one. He is still the apple of my eye, and the sweetest man I know.

  My brother, Adam, and I. I had just turned twenty.

  My first modeling card at Flame, the L.A. agency that launched my music video career.

  Me, at the Miss Teen USA pageant.

  My mom, Judy Ann Faul, and Mr. Earl, while they were dating, on a trip to Vegas.

  My father, Bobby Gene Brown, walked me down the aisle the day I married Jani Lane. It was a beautiful day for us all.

  Me, pregnant with Taylar. Jani had drawn something silly on my belly.

  Me, big as a house.

  Taylar loved it when my mom put her hair in curlers, even when she was a baby. Funnily enough, I had always hated it.

  Our daughter, Taylar, was born with an amazingly full head of blond hair. We used to joke she looked like Billy Idol.

  Jani and baby Taylar.

  Tommy and I on vacation in Cancun. Less than a year later, he would marry my rival Pamela Anderson right there on the beach.

  Tommy and I loved to kiss with our mouths open, because when we were together, we were always laughing.

  Tommy and I in bed in Cancun, shortly after the thing we did best . . . sex.