Tattoos & Tequila: To Hell and Back with One of Rock's Most Notorious Frontmen

by Vince Neil

  Around this period, at one of the Penthouse shoots, I got talking to this makeup artist. Makeup artists are cool chicks; a lot of them become celebrity wives. This girl was showing me her book—photos of makeup jobs she’d done in the past. One of them was the cover model for the April 1994 issue of Playboy. This girl was amazingly beautiful. I demanded a hookup.

  Her name was Heidi Mark. We went out on a date… and ended up staying in bed for the next three days straight.

  She was sweet. She was sexy. We were on the same page. She was unbelievably gorgeous. A cut above gorgeous. And believe me, I know gorgeous, I am a connoisseur.

  Heidi was blond with a nice rack, but her body was little teeny-tiny. Brought up rough on the wrong side of the tracks in Florida, molested on and off by an assortment of stepfathers and other mother daters, she’d left home at fifteen to live with a Miami Vice–style drug dealer. When she was barely twenty, she found herself dating Prince. Later, she’d date O. J. Simpson, though that was long before the death of his wife Nicole.

  Soon after we met, Heidi started doing the soap opera The Young and the Restless. Later, when her Playboy centerfold came out, in July 1995, she was fired by the stuffy network suits. After that, she had a busy career doing guest-starring roles on many popular shows and in several movies. She was always doing appearances and stuff. Though I didn’t always like it when she was traveling, it was cool for once to have a chick who made money. Usually I was the one making the money. And right now, I was making less than I used to with Mötley, plus I had all kinds of lawyer bills and child support and alimony and whatnot. You wonder where the money goes. It’s not hard to figure out. Most of it never even saw my pocket.

  Next stop was the sixth annual Frank Sinatra Celebrity Invitational golf tournament at the Marriott’s Desert Springs Resort in Palm Desert. I’m not a bad golfer; I’ve played a lot of charity tournaments over the years. (I’ve been hosting one in Skylar’s memory for more than a decade.) Owing to Frank’s involvement, this was probably the highest-ranking event on the Californian golfing calendar; it was a charity thing to raise money for two different hospitals. I’d been taking part since the second annual, I think it was.

  Back when he was alive, the tourney was pretty special. Frank was like the ultimate rock star. Frank was so cool. He called me “kid.” He was like, “Hey, kid.”

  Oh man. He was just soooo cool.

  Frank only invited certain people to his house; I was shocked that I got an invitation. Here I am, this guy who’s from Mötley Crüe. You’re at his house. The party’s in a big tent out back. To go to the bathroom you would go into the house and use the one in his office. And you’re in there taking a leak and there’s like keys to the city from all these cities all over the walls, and all these awards that he’s won over the years. And you’re trying to piss. You got your dick in your hand… literally. It was unbelievable, all the memorabilia he had. I could’ve been in his office all day and all night just looking at stuff.

  All the old stars were there. Robert Wagner. Sammy Davis, Jr. And… What’s that guy’s name? The Unsolved Mysteries guy, Robert Stack. Telly Savalas was there. I guess a lot of those people are dead now. I remember I was in Sinatra’s backyard and I was slow-dancing with the singer Frankie Avalon. No. I’m sorry. I was slow-dancing with Mike Connors, the actor from that old show Mannix. While I was dancing with Mike, me and Frankie Avalon were singing “Strangers in the Night” to Frank Sinatra, who was standing there with a drink in his hand, just smiling and shaking his head at the big fools we were being.

  Right after that I went to the Bahamas to hang out on this ninety-foot yacht with Michael Peters. He’s known as the King of Strip Clubs; he owns all the Pure Platinum and Solid Gold strip clubs around the country. He’d been a good buddy ever since he vowed to play Girls, Girls, Girls every hour in all of his strip clubs across the country. I’d gotten the idea to shoot a tropical video for one of the songs on my album. So I said to Peters, “Let’s go down to the Bahamas.” We actually took a camera and a crew with us and stuff.

  We jumped on a couple of Learjets. I think we took twelve girls, fourteen girls—we had the chicks put coke in their pussies so we could clear customs or whatever. We went to this secluded bay called Hurricane Hole, where a ninety-foot yacht called Solid Gold lay at anchor awaiting our arrival. It was a fucking madhouse—literally. It was just… Let’s just say we didn’t get a whole lot of filming done. Everywhere you looked there were girls doing blow and fucking. And that was pretty much it. I think we were there a couple weeks or something.

  And then… what?

  Heidi showed up? In the Bahamas?

  Oh my god! That’s right.

  I completely forgot.

  Heidi showed up on the beach with her suitcase while I was Jet-Skiing in the bay. I had this topless girl sitting behind me on the Jet Ski, her arms wrapped around my waist, one hand down the front of my bathing suit.

  Heidi and I had only just started dating; I really liked her. I’d invited her to come to the Bahamas—only I’d forgotten all about it.

  Shit! I can picture her waving to me from the beach, trying to flag me down, you know? And I’m with this chick on the back of the Jet Ski—I had actually invited this other chick down from Florida to come hang out with me, because Peters also had this house right there on the beach. I can’t remember her name. She was this hot brunette. But when I saw Heidi I just knocked her off the back of the Jet Ski. I mean, it’s not like there weren’t other boats and people out there. It wasn’t the middle of the ocean. It was just this little bay. It was purely an instinctive move. There was no thought about it. I was in survival mode at that point, I guess.

  And then I Jet-Skied onto the beach to where Heidi was waiting. I was like, “Hi, honey. What’s up? How was your flight?”

  Heidi put the bimbo eruption behind her… this time. We took up residence in the beach house—after the other girl’s shit was discreetly removed.

  That week, and for the next six or seven years, our time together would be a mixture of heaven and hell. There were wonderful, tender moments and wild, over-the-moon moments; we’d go days sometimes without getting out of bed. And there were drunken arguments and lots of women and lies and her nagging the shit out of me. You wouldn’t think a woman that beautiful and successful would be so insecure, but that’s the way it is with a lot of beautiful women. I think the most beautiful ones end up getting abused in some way when they’re young and it damages them forever.

  Our Bahamas sojourn ended with me running the Jet Ski into a coral reef. I banged myself up pretty good—I think I cracked a couple of ribs. Heidi said it was probably bad karma. The truth: I was pretty drunk.

  Heidi would become wife number three, the woman who stuck by me during my lowest times—until she left me for a fuckin’ plastic surgeon, the bitch. Some people say Heidi was my one true love. I know I told her that a time or two. People say a lot of stuff in the course of a relationship. I know one thing: You don’t stop loving people. They just sort of outlive their time. You grow apart. You move on.

  Heidi Mark Vince’s Third Wife

  It all started when he called the Playboy Mansion looking for me. He’d seen my picture; he knew my makeup artist—she’d been working on a shoot at his house when he was renting it out. He saw a picture of me and he told my friend, “That’s the girl I’ve been looking for.” But I have to tell you: I was not initially into it. I was not a Mötley Crüe kind of girl. I grew up in Florida. Orlando, Palm Beach. I listened to dance music, Stevie B, Stacey Q, those kinds of things. I remember I asked around at the mansion and somebody had a Mötley Crüe album cover—I think it was Shout at the Devil. There was a picture of all four guys, three dark-haired and a blond. Vince had said he was the blond. So okay. They all looked pretty much the same to me. But my friend said he was cool, so I said I’d go out with him—though I lied and said I had to be home early because I had a photo shoot the next day and I had to get my rest.

&n
bsp; Vince picked me up in a white Testarossa. He pulled through the gates of the mansion; they let him in. I was staying in the guest cottages. At the time Hef was married and there was a sign that hung in the kitchen: “If mama ain’t happy, nobody is happy.” I never ate in the house; I never hung out in the house. I never sat down with Mr. Hefner. If he passed by I was like a little mouse: “Hi, Mr. Hefner.” I stayed in my room. I wanted no trouble. Kimberly and I were friends. And people who didn’t respect their marriage tended to have trouble.

  I remember Vince picking me up and he pulled around to the very back and that’s where the back gate is. There’s nothing pretty or nice about that area; that’s like where security is, where the dog pens are.

  Vince seemed very nice. He got out to help me in the door because the Testarossa has weird door handles. But I was from Palm Beach. I knew how to open a Ferrari. Vince seemed soft-spoken. Charismatic. Not weird at all, very normal. When I was with Prince, he was just strange. I met Prince in his club in an upstairs room. And he’s literally sitting in a throne with like a big picture window overlooking the club and a seven-foot-tall Hare Krishna bodyguard next to him—he’s the one who pulled me off the dance floor. But Vince had on a suit, which I was very surprised at. I thought he was going to show up in some sort of rock star gear, whatever that was.

  We get in the car and the first thing he says is, “I don’t think I want to drive this car tonight. I think I’ll go home and switch cars.” I didn’t know it then, but it’s not like it was around the corner. We’re in Holmby Hills. He lived in Malibu. So, we drive all the way to Malibu and switch into his convertible Rolls-Royce. And I’m like, Okay, we switched the cars….

  He smelled so good. He was so polite and so kind. We ended up at this party. There was a girl dancing on our table and I’m like, “Give me a hundred.” I put it in her G-string, and he was like, Wow, this girl is cool. I was always a man’s woman I guess, for better or worse. I drank beer. I liked to party. Like one night we actually both drank a bottle of gin. Vince and I both had our own bottles. We were in Hawaii. And we finished at the same time. I smoked cigars sometimes with him at the Havana Room. My mother was married seven times. I ran away at fifteen to live with my boyfriend/drug dealer. Then I’m like twenty-three and I’m on the cover of Playboy, you know? I’ve lived a lot of life. I think that’s why I understood Vince.

  Vince was very gregarious. That first night, we were making out. And I’m like, “What the fuck’s in your tooth?” And he’s like, “A diamond.” And I was like, Who puts a diamond in their tooth? That was our very first date. After that, I didn’t leave his house for a week.

  After that, I was going back to Orlando; I was shooting a TV series with Hulk Hogan called Thunder in Paradise. I was leaving and I go, “You have to swear on this Bible that you will never cheat on me.” And he swore on the Bible. And I was like, “Okay, we’re done. Okay, perfect. I love you. See you soon.”

  I was the first woman Vince had dated who had her own established career. I’d been a working actress for a long time. Vince didn’t have to support me at all. He was very proud of that. He was like, “You’re the first girl I’ve ever dated who paid for shit.” And I did. I paid for my own shit. Vince had the divorce and the doctor bills. He wasn’t in Mötley anymore. I paid for my own car. I bought my Mercedes E55 before it was in production—it was a year before it was in production; I paid a little extra; I didn’t care, I had the money. I remember him just being like so proud of me, because he loved cars, too.

  Then I got this amazing job with Aaron Spelling. Mr. Spelling adored me; he was the sweetest man. He was like, “Heidi, we need to make you a star.” So I got on his new show, Love Boat: The Next Generation. They wanted to sex up the show, so Mr. Spelling brought me in and basically told the network, “This girl is my only choice; there’s nobody else I want but Heidi Mark.” When I went to the network, Mr. Spelling was on the phone waiting when I got out of the meeting. He told me I got the job. It was just so amazing.

  When I got home, Vince had painted a picture using my paints—I was all into painting and still am. He had gone through the Robb Report and cut out a cruise ship. He’d glued it onto paper; he’d even written: “Congratulations. I love you.” And he put it in a frame. All in a mat—the whole bit. All of that in the time since I had called him and told him I got the job. He drew the ocean, the sky, some clouds, a couple birds. Like the works. Those are the things that he did. You know?

  It’s sad, but when you look back at our like wedding pictures we looked really in love. We did the whole rock ’n’ roll wedding. Vince started crying—I don’t have a copy of the videotape anymore, but I remember being in front of the minister and going, “Are you crying? Oh my god, you’re really crying?” Like at first I thought he was kind of being funny. Then I realized he was really crying. And I was like—I forgot all about the video camera, which is a telltale sign of being in the moment. I really forgot what we were doing. For those few seconds, it was like everyone was gone, all the guests and the minister and everyone, and it’s just me and Vince and I’m like, “Babe, you’re really crying, oh my god, honey.” Because I didn’t mean to make fun of him—he was really crying. There’s this one picture of us at our wedding and you just see the whole room going crazy. Not crazy like bad, crazy like fun. The picture is taken from behind us, so all you see is the backs of our heads. He has his arm around me and I have my head on his shoulder and we’re doing nothing, absolutely nothing, just looking on while the entire rest of the room seems like people in a nightclub in New York City. All the guests are at their tables drinking and talking, just having so much fun; you can tell. It was a great great great night. We got married to Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love.” I remember walking down the aisle and the words to the song talk about a man who is so imperfect and how much the woman loves him anyway. And I just remember seeing Vince and he was already bawling so hard. And I just remember thinking, He’s so imperfect but he’s perfect for me.

  Unfortunately, it turned out the only way our marriage would’ve worked was if I quit working. He couldn’t understand that I had to have space to do my thing. He was proud of me. He bragged about me constantly: He loved the fact that I was a Playmate; he loved the fact that I was on the cover; he loved the fact that I worked for Aaron Spelling; he loved the fact that I did movies. He loved all that. He loved it. But he wanted me home. He didn’t want to be there by himself. To him, that’s what your woman is for. A woman. Any woman? It was hard.

  One time—I think I was doing Beverly Hills 90210 at the time. I came home late from the set and let’s just say there was a lot of damage. You look around the house; you look in the garbage. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that your husband has been fucking someone in your house while you’ve been gone. I check his phone and he’d been with a girl that day. He’d gone shopping that day and bought me a Louis Vuitton purse, so his intentions were good. But somehow he hooked up with a girl and he brought her home. You know, I listened to his messages. We had this deal that if he was going to have a cell phone, it was under my name and I had the code to the message box. Now he could’ve been sneaky enough to hide things from me, but he didn’t.

  So I get the messages and one is from this girl who is actually the girlfriend of Randy Castillo, the drummer who passed away. He even played with Mötley for a while. He was a friend of Vince’s. Anyway, it was his chick. I knew the girl. I forget her name. Honestly, I would tell you. But she leaves this message, like, “I left my keys in your car. You have to get them out of your car before Heidi sees them.” I was like, “Oh really?”

  And she goes on in her message about like how important her keys are. She’s listing every key she has. There are a lot of them. “My front door, my mailbox,” my this, my that. And then she’s like, “Make sure you hide those keys and I’ll get ’em from you as soon as I can.”

  I went out to the Rolls, opened the door, saw the keys, grabbed them up.

  Then I
walked down the street about four or five houses and dropped them in a trash can.

  The next morning, I’m like, “Good morning.” And then I’m like, “By the way, if your little girlfriend wants to know where her keys are, they’re in a landfill somewhere.”

  And he’s like, “What you talking about?”

  And I go, “I got your messages last night off your phone.”

  And he goes, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Vince is a huge liar. He is a huge denier. Deny Deny Deny. That is Vince.

  After being with Vince close to a decade, I started to notice the different “tics” you might say he had when he was lying or embellishing. He will start blinking a lot; he’ll rock back and forth, one foot to the other. He does this thing where he rubs his chin. And then he does this other thing where he kind of talk/laughs. It’s like laughing and talking at the same time. When he greets somebody, he’ll be like, “Hey, man, hey, buddy,” using his laugh/talk voice. And if he’s lying to you he uses the same voice, like, “What do you mean?” laugh/talk. If he’s going to lie to you, it’s like his brain has already started spinning before you confront him. It’s like he knows what he wants you to know. If you look at him closely, the outer edges of his eyebrows are missing. He pulls them out obsessively when he’s lying/thinking of what lie to say. It’s like a sort of a reverse Pinocchio syndrome, only it’s with his eyebrows instead of his nose. His eyebrows quit growing back a long time ago, so I guess he’s been doing it a long time. He would have to draw them on before going onstage. Along with all of the other makeup—the eyeliner and stuff. I always thought he looked so hot with his eyeliner just a little smudged. He has nice green eyes. If there is a lot of drinking involved, look for… I believe it’s his left eye. It will start closing or getting sort of lazy, like there’s smoke in there. That’s when you know you are entering potentially dangerous territory. He will either be your “brother” or your “buddy”… or turn into a spiteful, mean, and sometimes violent Vince.