Tommy Lee is the guest on the latest episode of Bill Maher’s “Club Random Podcast.” If that sentence is surprising, you’re not alone—Lee himself is aware that he is not “your typical person” who would be visiting the show.
But that didn’t stop him from describing Maher in such a way that the host said “Many times, I’ve thought to myself, ‘But it would be nice if somebody, somewhere, some writer, somebody, could say what I would say about myself and I wish, I think people really understand about me, but they never seem to be able to get it.’ And you just did it.”
After telling the host that he’s “just going to fanboy out,” Lee said, “There’s nobody else on this planet like you. There just is not. They don’t make ’em like that.”
“You bring me extreme f—ing joy. Watching you say what nobody else will f—ing say, and f—ing… and mean it, and not give a flying f— about it. Dude, to me, that’s how I drive. I have so much respect for that, man, I love it. You do not give a f—. But in a very intelligent way, and a very informative way, I just, man, you just cut right through the f—ing bull—-. And I f—ing adore that about you, man, and it’s a f—ing pleasure to be sitting in this room with you.”
Maher, clearly taken aback and moved by Lee’s assessment, had a lengthy reply. He told the rock star, “Forever, I’ve had this, you know, one thing in my portfolio that, like, was difficult, which is that I do something that is a little harder to understand than most things because it’s a hybrid. Is it a… is it an opinion news show? Yes. Is it a comedy show? Yes. That’s too much for a lot of people.”
“So people… it’s not like I’ve… I’ve had a charmed career, I’ve made a very charmed life, and I hate to overuse the word blessed, but I have been. I had a talent that I could then… ok, so, but, as far as like, people like, when they write about you, or don’t write about you at all, there’s that one part that’s like, they would never give me an Emmy, that kind of stuff which I made my peace with years ago. You can’t have everything,” he continued.
“You can’t be what you just described I am and also be that… and I was just like, ‘That’s fine, that’s a trade-off I’ll make a million times over. But it… many times, I’ve thought to myself, ‘But it would be nice if somebody, somewhere, some writer, somebody, could say what I would say about myself and I wish, I think people really understand about me, but they never seem to be able to get it.’ And you just did it,” Maher concluded.
While Maher seemed touched by Lee’s description, he might not have been in any particular rush for the rest of us to hear it. While the episode was released on Sunday, it was actually filmed back in August (at one point, Lee references attending a Metallica concert that night; he was photographed at the Pantera/Metallica show on Aug. 25).
Elsewhere in the interview, the pair also discuss Lee’s notorious drinking habits. While he’s been sober for over a year now, he admitted that during Mötley Crüe’s heyday, he was drinking two gallons of vodka a day.
Lee added, “I just did, like, the full-body scan where they do, say, head-to-toe everything. And I can’t believe that smoking, drinking, all the dumb s— or the fun s— that I’ve done…dude, the doctor was like, ‘You’re good.’”
Watch the entire interview in the video above.