Mötley Crüe drummer Tommy Lee is on the disabled list for this summer’s reunion tour; Lee has broken ribs. He’s played a few songs a night, plus he plays piano on “Home Sweet Home.” Tommy Clufetos, from Ozzy Osbourne’s band (and who played on Black Sabbath’s final tours) plays drums for most of the show. But what happened to Lee? His wife and vlogging sensation Brittany Furlan has dished on exactly how Lee broke his ribs, and it’s not pretty.
In a new Snapchat video (which can be viewed below), Furlan explains, “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 continues, “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.”
The incident gets even scarier, with Furlan adding, “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 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.”
Even with the broken ribs, Lee is performing on the massive tour and even poking fun at his injury. During the band’s recent show in Washington, D.C., Lee even made fun of his current fate by throwing out some actual, edible ribs to the crowd.
Time will tell if he’s able to return to full-force at some point during the run.