Tommy Lee has claimed he would drink “two gallons of vodka” per day in his rock ‘n’ roll heyday.
The Mötley Crüe star, 61, discussed his extreme alcohol consumption on the Club Random podcast with Bill Maher.
The ex-husband of Pamela Anderson said that when he was at the height of his superstardom, he found it “easy to fall in love” with the effects of alcohol, and he would often not realise how much he’d had to drink.
“Alcohol’s such a f*****g weird one, because... f**k! It’s just – it’s easy to fall in love with the way it makes you feel, the way it makes you relax, and then all of a sudden you’re, like, ‘F**k! I’m drinking two gallons of vodka a day?!’” he said.
“This is not… You’re trying to kill yourself now,” he added.
When the host pulled him up on his claim, Lee replied: “Yeah. Two gallons of s**t. I swear to you. Dude, I swear to God.”
A US liquid gallon is 231 cubic inches, which equates to around 3.8 litres, meaning Lee claims that he drank 7.6 litres of vodka per day.
Maher then asked him how long he drank two gallons a day, to which Lee responded: “F**k, man – for a long time.”
“Your liver is on crutches at that point; it’s just barely functioning,” he added.
Lee said the whole band decided in the late 1980s that they needed to stop consuming to excess.
He said: “In ‘89, ‘90, is when, as a band, we decided, we were, like, ‘Okay dude, so someone’s gonna not wake up one morning. This is getting f*****g ridiculous.’”
Lee said he was recently given a clean bill of health from medics, and admitted he wasn’t quite sure how he’d been so lucky.
The drummer said: “I can’t believe… I pinch myself on a daily basis.
“I just did the full body scan, where they do, head to toe everything, and I can’t believe – smoking, drinking, all the f*****g dumb s**t, or the fun s**t that I’ve done.
“Dude, the doctor was, like, ‘You’re good.’”
Lee developed a reputation for his partying ways during the 80s and 90s as part of the metal band Motley Crue.
He has previously been married to Anderson, with the couple’s relationship the subject of a recent drama series starring Lily James and Sebastian Stan, Heather Locklear and Elaine Starchuk.
He said in 2020 that fourth wife Brittany Furlan had contributed to him checking himself into rehab after she told him his alcohol abuse “scared her”.
Speaking to Yahoo Entertainment, Lee explained his history of “on and off” substance abuse “for a long time”.
“I go through these phases where I just want to live a different life and fuck all the dumb shit,” the drummer said. “And then I decide, ‘You know what? I don’t want to live like that anymore.’”
He said at the time he had been sober for a year having previously been sober for a four-year stint.
