The bassist described the period when the band were at their peak as “very different” from today
Nikki Sixx has discussed Mötley Crüe’s behaviour in the context of the #MeToo movement, saying the band “don’t have anything to worry about.”
The Los Angeles rock band have become synonymous with tales of lewd conduct, with some incidents crossing the line.
Their memoirs The Dirt, which the new Netflix movie of the same name is based upon, included stories of Sixx tricking a woman into thinking she was having sex with him when he had really switched places with drummer Tommy Lee, and the band putting the receiver of a phone inside a girl and making her call her mum.
In an interview with Kerrang! The bassist was asked if Mötley Crüe had “anything to fear from the #MeToo movement”. He replied: “No. Here’s the thing: if anybody was abusing power, that’s one thing. But it was a time when everyone was living a life that is very different from today’s.
“That was then and this is now. No, we don’t have anything to worry about. But we would have done the wrong thing if we had made a film that worried about presenting us in a way that was politically correct.”
Critics’ reviews of The Dirt have been largely negative. In a one-star review, NME said: “In a post-MeToo landscape, The Dirt is the film equivalent of a Twitter egg spouting #meninist viewpoints to nobody. It’s a Gary Glitter song popping up on a Christmas playlist. It’s a Roy Chubby Brown VHS that fell down the back of the TV cabinet in 1999 […] It’s a sanitized version of The Dirt, but one which is so out of whack with modern sensibilities it’s quite astonishing it was ever made.”
Earlier this month (March 5), Sixx apologised for a rape story that appeared in the book version of The Dirt. “I have no clue why it’s in there other than I was outta my head and it’s possibly greatly embellished or [I] made it up,” he said, claiming to not remember the incident in question. “Those words were irresponsible on my part. I am sorry.”
