Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee continues to gut it out on tour while playing with broken ribs. And now the details behind how he broke his ribs has been made public. Lee’s wife Brittany Furlan shared the info in a Snapchat video (seen below) that has circulated online.
Lee has discussed his broken ribs during “The Stadium Tour” stops as a way of explaining why Tommy Clufetos has been filling in during a portion of the band’s sets. But the exact nature of what caused the injury had not been addressed until Furlan’s posting.
In the clip, she states, “Everyone keeps asking how Tommy broke his ribs, so I’m just gonna tell you. We were staying at an old rental house in Nashville. It was a cool, old quirky house. But the stairs outside were made out of stones, and they were really uneven, and the roots were pushing them up from the tree. And everything was fine. I actually fell up the stairs a few times getting groceries, but whatever.”
Furlan adds, “So, the day that we were leaving Nashville, our driver came and we had all this luggage and he wasn’t helping us; he just stayed in the car. And so Tommy was trying to carry all of our luggage for us. And he fell down these crazy stairs and broke — broke — four ribs. Not fractured, not bruised — broke. And it was crazy, ’cause I came out and he couldn’t breathe. It was really scary.”
She recalls, “He was on the ground [and] he was gasping for air. And he got on a plane that day still and went and did the rest of rehearsals [for the tour] in Pennsylvania. He went to the hospital in Pennsylvania when we landed and they were, like, ‘You have four broken ribs.’ And they wanted to keep him there, but they he did not wanna stay. And he’s just a fighter. He’s the toughest guy I know. I mean, look at all his tattoos; he just really fights through the pain…. Anyway, that’s what happened.”
Despite the broken ribs, Lee hasn’t lost his sense of humor where the injury is concerned. At a recent tour stop in Washington, D.C. he decided to mock his current situation by serving up some ribs, as in the food, to the crowd, tossing some tasty, meaty treats into the crowd.
Lee started the tour playing drums on three songs and returning for piano and drums on “Home Sweet Home.” But he’s added a little bit more on recent dates. In Philadelphia on Saturday (June 25), Lee returned on drums to play “The Dirt (Est. 1981),” marking the first time the song had been played live with all four members. He also played drums late in the set on “Dr. Feelgood” and finished out the night on drums on “Primal Scream” and “Kickstart My Heart.”
Motley Crue will continue through the summer with Def Leppard, Poison, Joan Jett and Classless Act on “The Stadium Tour.” Get your tickets for the upcoming shows here.
