Relationships with Women

"Erin and I treated each other like shit. Sometimes we treated each other great, because the children in us were best friends. But then there were other times when we just fucked up each other's lives completely."  Axl was accused of domestic violence by both Erin Everly and Stephanie Seymour. Because of his turbulent upbringing and his mother's reluctance to leave the abusive Bailey, Axl is said to have issues with women. He himself claimed in a Rolling Stone interview in 1992 that during his childhood he was made to believe that women and sexuality were evil and that due to the violent treatment of his mother by his stepfather he witnessed as an impressionable child, he had been led to believe that domestic violence was the normal way of life.  His distraught relationship with Erin inspired him to write the song, "Estranged", although it was later applied to Stephanie.

Throughout the mid eighties and into the early nineties, Axl was involved in a turbulent relationship with Erin Everly. By mid 1991, Rose became involved with model Stephanie Seymour.  "I've been hit by a Mack truck and the license plate said 'Seymour'."  Accounts state that Rose was crazy about Seymour, and considered her to be the one. Rose became deeply attached to Seymour's son, Dylan, and tried to be a good father figure for the child, as there had been none in his own life.  Axl wanted to adopt him.  Although Stephanie left Warren Beatty for Axl, she cheated on Axl with Warren and later held a cocaine party in Axl's home with Dylan present.  Axl threw her out and filed a restraining order, after which, Stephanie sued him.  Seymour and Rose parted ways in 1993, and Axl fell into a deep depression.

One of Axl's early girlfriends claimed Axl raped her. "Rape charge? What rape charge? The charges were dropped eventually, but for a while we had to go into hiding. We had undercover cops and the vice squad looking for us. They were talking a mandatory five years. It kind of settled my hormones for a while."

He has a habit of getting involved with women who are addicted to alcohol or cocaine.  Gina, Barbi, Michelle, Savannah, Stephanie, Sophie and Miss Universe Tara Connor were all cocaine addicts.  He seen with Tara in 2006.  A few months later, Tara admitted to alcohol and cocaine addiction and entered into rehab to prevent from losing her crown.  Erin was drunk when Steven shot her up with a speedball (cocaine/heroin mix).  It nearly killed her and Axl defended him.  Birds of a feather.  Does Axl still have a cocaine/alcohol addiction?  Will he continue to abuse women?

What has been considered Axl's strangest relationship is the one he has with his personal assistant, Elizabeth "Beta" Leibas, a Brazilian immigrant and mother of three (Vanessa, Alex, and Fernando).  She was Dylan Andrew's nanny.  When Stephanie left Axl, she fired Beta out of spite.  Axl hired Beta because he felt sorry for her and they have been together ever since, 17 years now--the longest relationship he's had with anyone except for his siblings, Del James, and Dizzy Reed.  She lives with him and travels on tour with him acting as assistant, manager, and interpreter for shows held in Portuguese or Spanish speaking countries.  She was seen briefly with Dylan during the November Rain documentary and featured in the Estranged video.  Axl supported her three children and sent them to college.  Vanessa seems to be sharing in her mother's assistant duties.  Though rumors have circulated over the years, Beta's  relationship with Axl is that of surrogate mother.  She has been the mother he always wanted, and her children have been much like younger siblings to him though he is on very good terms with his own siblings.  Her family has given him the sense of family that he never really had.  He and Beta do fight sometimes as all families do, but she seems to be the only woman who knows how to deal with him.  I shudder to think how Axl will handle it when she dies, as we all will someday.  I know that without Beta's love and support, he would not have transcended his breakup with Stephanie and might have even committed suicide.  She is the very reason Axl is still with us today and the only reason Guns N' Roses survived in any form.  What will he do without her?  Will he end his career when she dies, unable to continue due to his own ascending age?  None of us can predict how much longer Axl will continue recording and touring, nor when it will end.  It will end someday, either by Axl's death or retirement.  I'm not looking forward to either, as both Axl and his music mean a great deal to me.  Beta is most certainly the most important woman in Axl's life.  His former assistant was Colleen Combs, who Beta replaced.

Sabrina Okamoto is Axl's masseuse who has been with him for several years.  She tours with him and massages his back before and after each show.

Adriana Smith (brunette) and Cameron (blonde)

Former Friend: Angela Nicoletti (1979-1985, Izzy's ex-girlfriend.  One source says it was Monique Lewis.  Songs Patience and Don't Cry are about her.)

Girlfriend: Gina Siler (1979-1983, songs Shadow of Your Love, Back Off Bitch, and Don't Cry are about her)

Slept with: Barbi von Grief (1983-1985, whore and stripper, song Rocket Queen is about her)

Slept with: Yvonne (1984), Axl had a brief fling with Slash's girlfriend when she and Slash were separated.

Slept with: Adriana Smith (1985-1987), stripper Axl had sex with.  She was also Steven's g/f.  Axl had sex with her during the recording of Rocket Queen.

Girlfriend: Michelle Young (1984-1985, song My Michelle is about her) She and Axl had a brief romantic interlude.

Slept with: Shannon "Savannah" Michelle Wilsey Longoria (porn star, used for sex between 1985-1986, often confused for Michelle Young)

Slept with: Cameron (1986), a stripper who worked at the Seventh Veil.  All the guys used her for sex.

Wife: Erin Invicta Everly (1985, m. April 28, 1990, annulled January 1991, model.  Songs Sweet Child O' Mine and November Rain are about her)

Girlfriend: Stephanie Seymour (1991-93, Victoria's Secret model.  Songs Estranged, Better, Madagascar, and There Was A Time are about her)

Girlfriend: Jennifer Driver (1993-1994, Guess jeans and nude model, no bio available.)

Girlfriend: Lindi Hingston: (1994-2003 or 2004) 29 year old South African model, no other info available

Girlfriend: Diane O'Connor (2003 or 2004-May 18, 2006, Michael Hilfiger's ex wife.  No info available.)

Slept with: Sophie Anderton (May 14, 2006, Gossard bra model)

Slept with: Tall mystery blonde (July 4, 2006, London, England)

Girlfriend: Kat Mack (July 5-October, 2006, model.  Diane O' Connor introduced them)

Girlfriend: Sasha Volkova (October 23, 2006, New York model, born in the Ukraine on April 19, year unknown, no other info available)

Currently Dating: Sasha Volkova

These are the known women in Axl's life.  I'm sure he didn't abstain from sex for 10 years.  On May 5 during his interview with Eddie Trunk, Axl said he was not dating anyone special.  Axl prefers brunettes and even dyed his own hair brown in 2001.  He will have sex with a blonde and those he has been involved with are bleached blondes who are natural brunettes.  He has never been seen with or taken a photo with a red head.

Gina Siler

From Guns N' Neuroses by Dean Kuipers

Spin Magazine; September, 1991

Gina Siler spent three years in the eye of the maelstrom of Axl’s ambitions, rages, and adolescent scrapes with cops. She began dating Axl when she was 17 and still a senior in high school. Axl was 20 and had already bussed or hitchhiked out to LA and back twice. In December 1982 she finished high school early so she and Axl could move to LA together in her car. They lived together on and off until 1985, and were engaged to be married "about nine times" by her count. She jokingly calls herself "the missing link" because she says Axl now refuses to acknowledge her. Gina attended the University of Arizona and is now a professor of Astronomy there.

"When I met him", Gina says, remembering, "I was having my seventeenth birthday party. He had on a long trench coat, dark glasses, collar pulled up, and said he was trying to stay away from the police. I asked : ‘What happened?’ He said : ‘Nothing. They just always bother me. They always harass me, no matter where I am.’ But he would do some pretty wild things. They would go out and drink and do some stupid things, like smash windows along Main Street."

Gina recalls that the first time Axl bussed back to visit her from LA, cops got to him before she did. "He was walking down the street, and it was probably two o’clock in the morning. From the back, he looks very effeminate, with his long hair - not common for that area - and very thin legs, and he had a long coat on. These police were making comments, making gestures, because they thought he was a woman. Until he turned around, and they were very embarrassed to find out it was a male. So they started hassling him, because they were homophobic as hell. They questioned him, and then found out it was Bill Bailey, who’d obviously been in trouble before, and threw him in jail."

According to Gina, "He called me about three o’clock in the morning and said : ‘I’m in jail. You got to get me out.’ I skipped school the next day. And they brought him out in cuffs. Took him to court. I had to pay his bail."  How strange that Axl would later end up sounding like a scared Midwestern cop, espousing the same misdirected homophobia.

"There was so little there to do.", Gina explains. "He’d be in fights a lot. And I don’t think he’s even conscious of what he does, or how angry he gets. Somebody told me that he’s on lithium, to try and control it, because he’s a manic depressive. I always thought there was something chemical that happened to him when he was angry. That image of him sitting in the electric chair in the video ‘Welcome to the Jungle’, looking crazed, says it all. That’s what he looks like when he’s pissed off. And when you see that coming at you from across a room, coming near you, it’s frightening as hell. And I’m not very big, and that made it even worse. I won’t go much into that."

"He came back from LA in the summer after my junior year, which would have been 82," said Gina. "And then he spent the summer here, and we had a wonderful time. We did a lot of hallucinogens. Wrote a lot of poetry. Did a lot of writing. Did lots of skateboarding. We’d go to parks and play Frisbee; we always had music with us, Queen or Nazareth or AC/DC or Sex Pistols or Aerosmith. We’d go hang out at Purdue. We’d sit around in somebody’s room and do acid and paint on the walls. I had pink hair and dressed real strange, so we always had the police around a lot. One time, there was a baseball game across the street at the park, and there was almost a huge fight. And it was, like, nine or ten good ole boys, and then us, and nothing had happened. They just didn’t like us because we had different ideas.  Axl and David Lank had designed this huge banner; they wanted to call the band Axl. Izzy was already in LA - there was this idea of things they wanted to do, but for a long time, Izzy and Axl just didn’t click."

"The people back in Indiana, they missed out on something that I got to experience," says Gina. "I lived with him during that period of ‘Bill’ to ‘Bill Axl’ to ‘Axl’. It was the strangest thing, because some days he’d be Bill, some days he’d be Axl, some days I didn’t know who the hell he was. I didn’t know what to do, because I didn’t know what person he was. For a long time he tried to dispel the fact that he had ever lived in the Midwest. He was trying to build an image, and a persona of the musician he thought he wanted to be. And sometimes I find it ironic that the thing which he tried most to get away from is what he’s trying most to go back to now."

"He is extremely intelligent," insists Gina. "That was one of the things that attracted me to him. He is just a nit-picky perfectionist and when things don’t go smoothly and to his liking he just loses it. He blows up. I’ve seen him do it on many occasions, smashing things and breaking things and yelling and screaming - holes through walls. I saw him do it one too many times."  Gina and Axl left Lafayette for good in her car on December 19, 1982 and moved into "some shit hole" at 1921 Whitley Avenue in Hollywood.

"He knew he wanted to be in a band. He was made to be a musician. I went to West LA Community College, and had some cheesy part-time job somewhere. We lived there for five months, and then I moved out. He stayed there, and then Izzy moved in for a while. In fact, while we were living there he got into the band Hollywood Rose." It became apparent that neither Axl nor any of the other future Gunners lived "on the streets" as much as they would like us to believe. "There were times when he would take my car to practice," says Gina. "I would help him do his make-up. No, he didn’t live on the streets entirely. I helped him out quite a bit. I don’t think he likes to think about that, though. There were times, granted, when he lived on the streets after I’d kick him out because I got tired of trying to support the both of us, and I got tired of fighting. I would describe the two of us as putting a nuclear warhead in your living room and hitting it with a hammer and just waiting. That was what the two of us together were like."

Gina says she bought him the rose tattoo for his birthday - the one that reads ‘W. Axl Rose’ and sealed his identity in blood. Another Lafayette pal bought Axl his first PA system for Christmas years earlier (on condition that he bring it back when he became a star, which he did). Members of that Lafayette Commune have remained GNR satellites to this day. But a few, including Gina, were disgusted by Axl’s flickering vision once the star-maker machinery kicked in for real around late 1985.

During the years 1983 through 1985, Axl networked and threatened to dye his hair black or blond. On many occasions he also threatened to cut it off and go back to school and become a ‘suit’. Axl and Gina "didn’t do drugs then," she says. "He exercised a lot. We didn’t have any money to do anything."

Gina returned to LA from Phoenix to visit Axl at the end of 1985. "It was a huge apartment. And these people were just sleeping everywhere. I remember Axl and some other guy - I can’t remember his name - picked me up at the airport. I was really pissed because they were doing heroin. Really pissed. God, that weekend was awful. All we did was fight. I shouldn’t even tell you this, but when I went to see him before ‘Appetite’ came out, and all he said to me was, ‘I can’t wait until this album’s done, because I want to lock myself in a room for six weeks and do heroin’."

Gina points to the recent single, Civil war, from the George Harrison Romanian relief album, performed at Farm Aid IV, as a hopeful sign that Axl and GNR might have survived mega-decadence with part of their more positive vision intact. But many of the band’s hometown critics simply see them continuing a hard spiral into madness.

Axl wrote the following letters to Gina in 1981.  He honestly did love her and I don't think he cheated on her from 79-83.

Barbi von Grief

Barbi was the madame of a whorehouse.  She had a notorious reputation at age 18; she was a drug addict and a queen of the underground scene.  Axl was infatuated with her.  "I wrote this song for this girl I know.  She kinda kept me alive for awhile.  She was gonna have a band and call it Rocket Queen.  I'm singing as though I was in her shoes, and then at the end of the song I'm singing the song to her.  The last part of the song is my message to this person, or anybody else who can get something out of it. It's like there's hope and a friendship note at the end of the song.  The girl it's written about, her life's history now.  I mean, she's alive, but there's not much left of it.. For that song there is also something I tried to work out with various people - a recorded sex act. It was somewhat spontaneous but premeditated; something I wanted to put on the record.  It was a sexual song and it was a wild night in the studio. This girl we knew [Adriana Smith] was dancing; everyone was getting really excited. The night could've gotten really explosive, lots of trouble for everyone, and I thought 'wait a minute, how can we make this more productive?' " Axl - Hit Parader March 1988

Michelle Young

From the article Just A Little Patience, Spin July 1999

Michelle was a friend of Slash's first girlfriend, Melissa.  She, Slash, and Steven grew up together.  The photo to the far left was taken with Slash when they were both 14.  It was Slash who introduced her to Axl in 1985.  "Slash went out with her when he was about 13 and then I went out with her later on."  She quickly became a friend of the band.  She is also supposedly the person who introduced Axl to heroin.  "I know this girl named Michelle and she became a really good friend of the band and I was going out with her for a while. We got into a hassle or whatever and then I wrote this song.  It's a true story. Slash and some other members of the band said that's kinda too heavy to say about poor, sweet Michelle; she'll freak out. I'd written the nice sweet song about her, and then I looked at it and thought, 'that really doesn't touch any basis of reality', so I put down an honest thing. It describes her life. This girl leads such a crazy life with doing drugs, or whatever she's doing at the time, you don't know if she's gonna be there the next day. Every time I see Michelle I'm really relieved and glad. I showed her the lyrics after about three weeks of debating, and she was so happy that someone didn't paint just a pretty picture. She loves it. It was a real song about her.  Even her dad liked the fact that it was really accurate."  "I'm the subject of the song 'My Michelle'.  I was driving Axl to a gig and 'Your Song' by Elton John came on the radio. I said that I wished somebody would write a beautiful song about me. But, you know the song. At the time, I didn't care because I was so fucked up, but what it says is all true: My dad does distribute porno films and my mom did die.  Axl used to stay over at my house a lot because he had nowhere else to go. After they got famous, there were better places to stay-and shopping. They would call and say, 'I got this. I got that. I got a new car.'  After Lies was released in 1988, Axl changed; he and I had a falling out. I was high one night and I pushed his buttons, saying, 'You're famous now and you don't need your friends.' He said, 'Get out of my face'.  Erin would call me and say, 'Axl's crazy; he's throwing things around'.  She pushed his buttons, but I know that he loved her.  Axl's anger had quadrupled from the person I used to hang out with. He used to be very carefree."  Michelle was the woman who walked passed Axl at the beginning of the Welcome to the Jungle video.

Shannon "Savannah" Michelle Wilsey Longoria

Shannon Michelle Wilsey Longoria was born in Laguna Beach, California on October 9, 1970 and died on July 11, 1994.   She is commonly known by her stage name of Savannah and was an American actress, starring in more than 100 pornographic films during her career. One of the most high-profile porn stars of her time, she achieved notoriety within her short (1990 - 1994) career due to her on-screen presence as well as her off-screen life.  Savannah reportedly took her stage name from Savannah Smiles, a 1982 movie she enjoyed. Her nickname among friends and costars was "Savvy".

When Savannah's parents divorced in 1972, she moved to Texas to live with her mother. When she grew older, she lived briefly with her father in Oxnard, California and then with her grandparents in her hometown of Mission Viejo, California. At the age of thirteen, she learned that Joe Longoria, the man who had raised her, was not her biological father.  Years later it was rumored she said that she was sexually molested by her stepfather as a child.  Soon afterward, Savannah began to transform into a "wild child" and became a well-known rock groupie.  "I love sex and I love sex with rockers more than anything else. I don't seem to go out with really normal people. I'm kind of on the wild side. I don't think I ever went out with anybody with short hair. I like musician types."  She presumably had sex with Axl Rose at the age of 15; her affair with him lasted about a year between 1985-1986.

Shortly after breaking up with Axl, she started dating musician Gregg Allman of the Allman Brothers and then moved in with him for awhile. She became pregnant, but suffered a miscarriage. Her relationship with Allman ended after two years. She met and moved in with Billy Sheehan, the bass guitarist for Mr. Big. About this time, she started to do nude modeling, which eventually led to performing in adult movies around 1990. She became "Savannah."  This situation affected her relationship with Billy and they broke up.

She signed an exclusive contract with Vivid Entertainment in 1991 and gained fame rapidly. By 1992, Savannah had become one of the most famous porn stars in the business, but developed a reputation for being difficult and throwing tantrums. She began to indulge her instinct for excess. She began to use heroin and cocaine, and reportedly had severe financial troubles. Savannah spent more than she made. She commented on the Joan Rivers Show that the best thing she liked about the porn business was that she didn't have to look at price tags anymore. She bought designer clothes and leased a home in the hills above Universal City, decorating it with an expensive art collection. But Shannon had her generous side as well. She donated a lot of money to charities, particularly The Pediatric AIDS Foundation. She also shared a lot of her money with her friends.  In 1992, Savannah was named Adult Video News's Best New Starlet. At the awards show, she made an arrogant and hostile acceptance speech: "I know a lot of you don't like me, but that's tough. I got my award." 

Her fondness for rock stars led her to become involved with several well-known musicians, including Vince Neil, Billy Idol, and Slash.  However, on more than one occasion she tended to desire a serious relationship, while her partners wanted only a "fling". This led her to heartbreak on more than one occasion.

Savannah met the love of her life: Slash, the Guns N' Roses' lead guitarist. But when he dumped her and married model Renne Suran in 1992, she took the breakup hard and her drug addiction worsened.  She briefly dated Vince Neil of Motley Crue and had a drug overdose while with him. Savannah wanted a serious relationship, so Vince broke up with her. Openly bisexual, she became lovers with porn star Jeanna Fine, but that relationship also ended badly, and afterward she had a long relationship with comedian Pauly Shore.

Popular and profitable, her "star" behavior was indulged by the adult film industry and she began to alienate her peers.  As a result of her drug addiction and ill-tempered behavior, Vivid dropped her in 1993.  She began to work for other adult film companies, expanding her routines to more exotic sexual behaviors.  She began to have money problems, particularly with the IRS.  Paranoid about prowlers, she borrowed a gun from a friend and slept with it beneath her pillow.  Savannah hoped to make the transition from sex star to legitimate actress, but this wasn't to happen. She was depressed about her breakup with Slash.  She had a few roles in mainstream movies in the late 1980s, but never managed to break into a starring role in the non-adult entertainment industry.

She realized she could make a great deal of money touring on the dancing circuit, making up to $5,000 a night. She had a new engagement due to start on Monday, but on Sunday night she went out with a friend, Jason Swing, to party till late. On July 11, 1994, at about two in the morning on the way home, she drove her Corvette up the windy roads to her house and smashed into a picket fence, injuring her nose. When she and Jason finally made it to her house, she sent him out to walk her Rottweiler, Daisy. Alone and upset, Savannah called her friend and manager Nancy Pera and hysterically begged her to come help her.

When Pera arrived, she found Savannah lying in a pool of blood in the garage, but she was still breathing. She had apparently shot herself with a 9mm handgun she kept in her home. After almost 11 hours in a coma, she died at 1:20 p.m. on July 11, 1994 at St. Joseph's Medical Center in Burbank, California.  According to reports, both were intoxicated.  Pera speculated that the injury to her face from the car wreck could have seemed like the last straw in her troubled life, because it would have prevented her from making the dancing engagement.  Thus, fearing the loss of the ability to regain financial stability as well as continued fame, she became despondent and distraught. Life seemed to have few choices. She decided death was her best option.  Police investigators concluded that she was deeply depressed due to several factors, including her drug use, financial difficulties, and failed relationships. The accident in which she sustained injuries that might have seriously hurt her career, police theorized, was the final factor that led her to take her own life.

After her death, her family swapped angry public statements of blame with her friends in the porn industry.  They gave strict orders, limiting the number of Shannon's industry colleagues who could attend the funeral.  Although she frequently came in contact with mainstream Hollywood, only Pauly Shore from that circle would be in attendance at her funeral.  As is the case with many figures in entertainment, Savannah's popularity further grew posthumously. According to some reports, demand for her films tripled in the months after her death.

Angela Nicoletti

Angela Nicoletti was Izzy's girlfriend who left him for Andy McCoy of Hanoi Rocks.  She is also Johnny Thunder's younger first cousin.  Izzy wrote the song Patience after she left him.  Axl and Izzy both wrote Don't Cry after each of their respective girlfriends broke up with them on the same night outside a Hollywood club.  Axl never dated her, though he wanted to. 

Angela is an American born actor and singer who also is legendary rock 'n roll guitarist Andy McCoy's wife. Angela was born August 12th, 1964 in North Hollywood, California. In addition acting and singing, she has been doing modeling, music promoting, songwriting, scriptwriting and so on.

The first job she got as a model was a charity gig under the name USA for Africa. She is on the inner sleeve of the album modeling the clothing. After that she has been in countless modeling projects, from swimsuit model to Gilda Marx projects via Madonna's Boy Toy line of clothing.

Angela has been in several music videos, e.g. in David Lee Roth's California Girls and Just A Gigolo. Guns N Roses Sweet Child O' Mine, Andy McCoy and Live Ammos Strung Out and so on. And many more. Angela has acted in few movies, the first one titled Night Train to Terror, where she plays a singing dancing girl at the age of only 17 years. She also plays herself in a reality movie called Real McCoy.

The first time Angela sang professionally was in Sweden 1993. Andy McCoy started a band called Live Ammo and Angela joined in. She does the lead vocals on Fox Field Junction on Andy's album. Her second effort as a singer was in 1997 with a second coming of Andy's first punk band called Briard. Angela duets with her husband Andy on the song River of Dreams.

Angela started working together with her husband on a feature film and soundtrack in 1997 called The Real McCoy. It was up for many awards. One at the Berlin film festival and another from Sodankyla film festival in Finland. It was also up for an award in Sao Paulo in Brazil. The movie took almost three years to make after Andy had a serious freak accident and fell off a balcony in the middle of filming. The film has since gone on to be a cult classic along with the soundtrack. The film has had critical acclaim and praise from the press universally to the New York Times to Billboard and so on.

In 2003 Angela and Andy had their own weekly TV show with MTV3 titled The McCoys Show. They did 18 episodes. It was a nation wide success, scooping up incredible viewer numbers. The series gathered approximately 1 000 000 viewers per episode in Finland, that's 20 per cent of the population.

Early 2006 Angela has just been elected as the president of the Women's Self Defense Association International (WSDAI), Finland Chapter. It's a training organization for women's self defense with the goal not to attack but to defend. 

Erin Everly

Erin Invicta Everly (born November 8, 1965) is the former wife of Axl Rose. Everly is the daughter of Don Everly, of the Everly Brothers, and Venetia Stevenson.

Erin and Axl began living together in 1986.  She worked as a model while Axl and his band, Guns n' Roses, started to make a name for themselves in the Hollywood music scene.  Guns n’ Roses hit it big in 1988 with, Sweet Child O’ Mine. The song was number #1. It was written for Erin who was also briefly featured in the video.

Erin has said that Axl "proposed" marriage to her by coming over to her home at 4:00am and threatening to kill himself unless she married him that day.  Axl and Erin were married on April 28th 1990. They drove to Las Vegas that day and married in a quickie ceremony at Cupid's Chapel. Less than a month after the wedding, Axl filed for divorce, but later changed his mind. That same year, Erin became pregnant but unfortunately had a miscarriage on October 30, 1990, which deeply affected Axl, who had wanted to have children of his own.  Axl threatened to kill himself again and they got into a fight during which Erin wrestled the gun out of his hands.  This scene was reenacted by Axl and Stephanie during the Don't Cry video.

By the end of the 1990, Erin and Axl broke up for good.  In January 1991, the marriage between Axl and Erin was annulled. Erin did not receive a hefty financial settlement that she would have if the marriage had ended in divorce.  Axl in analysis two years later stated, "I cry every time I think of how horrible we treated each other. Erin and I treated each other like shit. Sometimes we treated each other great, because the children in us were best friends. But then there were other times when we ruined each other's life completely." 

In 1994, Erin filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Axl, claiming domestic violence. After the lawsuit was filed, Erin went public with tales of Axl inflicting emotional and physical abuse on her throughout their relationship. Erin claimed that when Axl was very angry, he dragged her upstairs, stripped her, and locked her in a closet for hours. Later, he went back up and dragged her out the closet and forced her onto the bed and anally raped her.  Erin was also subpoenaed in a lawsuit filed against Axl by his ex-girlfriend Stephanie Seymour. Erin and Stephanie's lawsuits were later settled out of court.  The story made headlines in People Magazine on the heels of O. J. Simpson's murder trial.

In 1992, Erin dated Donovan Leitch, son of '60s troubadour Donovan and in 1993 she dated David Arquette.  Erin is now married to Jack Portman, an engineer, and has a son, Eason who is eight years old and a daughter, Eres.  They live in Atlanta, Georgia.

Stephanie Seymour

Stephanie Seymour (born 23 July 1968 in San Diego, California) is a supermodel who has done modeling work for many well-known fashion magazines and fashion designers, to include Victoria's Secret.  In 1989, Stephanie married rock musician Tommy Andrews, and they had a son named Dylan. But Stephanie began having an affair with Warren Beatty and her marriage to Tommy ended in divorce. While she was was dating Warren Beatty, Stephanie met Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses. Stephanie immediately dumped Warren and took up with Axl, leading Axl to believe that Warren cheated and left her and Dylan (that's why Axl talked about Warren in the Paris 1992 concert), as they began a passionate but rocky love affair. During her relationship with Axl, Stephanie co-starred in the Guns N' Roses videos "November Rain" and "Don't Cry." Stephanie and Axl eventually became engaged but after living together for two years, they had a bitter breakup. Axl and Stephanie then filed lawsuits against each other, both claiming that the other was physically abusive. Stephanie even subpoenaed Erin Everly, Axl's ex-wife, so Erin would testify that she was also abused by Axl. (The lawsuits have since been settled.)  Their tumultuous relationship ended in 1993 because she cheated on him with Peter Brant and was pregnant by him.  She and Dylan were expected to be in the video "Estranged", but she and Axl had broken up before then.

Stephanie is now married to millionaire media mogul Peter Brant. 

In 1993 she gave birth to Peter Brant, Jr.; in 1997 to Harry Brant; and in 2004 to her first daughter, Lilly Margaret Brant. 

In 1998 her book Stephanie Seymour's Beauty Secrets for Dummies was published.

In 1999, she was photographed in Paris by Peter Beard for Gerard Darel Fashions.

In 2000 she played Helen Frankenthaler in the movie Pollock and was ranked #91 on the FHM 100 Sexiest Women of 2000.

In 2002 she was Sara Lindstrom in the "Crazy" episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

In 2006 she posed partially nude for Germany's MAX magazine.

She also did a photo shoot for Gap with her family. Stephanie Seymour has appeared on over 300 magazine covers.

People Weekly
July 18, 1994
Cover Story
p. 48-53

Bye Bye Love
 

Former model Erin Everly, daughter of 50's pop star, says her life with Guns N' Roses rocker Axl Rose was a nightmare of domestic violence.

"She's got eyes of the bluest skies as if they thought of rain. I'd had to look into those eyes and see an ounce of pain."

Guns N' Roses founder Axl Rose - infamous for heavy metal screeds like "Back Off Bitch" - is generally not known for his love songs. But the raucous rocker's 1988 hit "Sweet Child O' Mine" was as tender as a power ballad can get. A No. 1 single, Rose's song was written for then girlfriend Erin Everly - a waiflike 22-year-old whose father, Don, had been half of rock's singing Everly Brothers. In 1990, four years after they met, Axl and Erin were married. By Everly's account, however, the couple's duet had dissolved into screams and violent discord long before they made it to the altar. In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE done before the O.J. Simpson case focused the nation on domestic violence, Everly describes a pattern of abuse frighteningly similar to the Simpsons' relationship preceding Nicole Simpson's murder. Everly says that throughout her four years with Rose, she suffered regular beatings that left her bruised, bloodied, and sometimes unconscious. "You never knew what would set him off," she says.

Like other alleged batterings, the final one meted out in Rose's West Hollywood luxury condo in November 1990, ended as abruptly as it had begun, with an argument over her cleaning his CD collection. But this time, Everly says, she did something she'd never done before. "I didn't think I could survive mentally any longer; I was dying inside," she recalls. "At the door I turned around and said, 'I want you to take a good look at me because you're never going to see me again.' And he never has."

Now, four years later, however, Everly, 28, is indeed hoping to see Rose, 32, at least one more time - in court. In March she filed a suit in Los Angeles, charging that he had subjected her to physical and emotional abuse.  Everly claims that during his frequent, unpredictable rages, Rose brandished guns, smashed her belongings and yanked telephones out of the wall. At one point, she alleges, he removed all the doors inside her apartment so that he could monitor her movements. "I was afraid when he came in, when he left, when he wasn't there," she says.

Rose refused to be interviewed about Everly's accusations, but in court papers he claims that the 5'6", 104 lb. Everly provoked him - Rose is 5'9", 145 lbs. - and that his actions were purely in self defense. A friend, who agreed to speak for Rose anonymously, concedes that the couple "did have a combative relationship. But," she adds, "Erin portrays herself as a victim and him as the evil aggressor. From what I witnessed, she was the aggressor." Everly, in turn, denies striking Rose. "That was never my reaction, to hit somebody," she says. "I don't even spank my dogs."

Everly launched the suit after being subpoenaed in a court action by Rose's former girlfriend, model Stephanie Seymour. In that case, Rose and Seymour exchange similar charges of physical abuse. Now waging a legal battle on at least two fronts, Rose reportedly plans to take time off from Guns N' Roses, whose last album, The Spaghetti Incident?, sold far less than it's predecessors and whose fortunes appear to be fading.

Promising futures seemed to await both Axl Rose and Erin Everly when the two met at a party in L.A. in 1986. He was an unknown 24-year-old with a fledgling rock band. Everly, then a 19-year-old Los Angeles native who had moved to New York City at 16 to model for the Wilhelmina agency, quickly fell for the ambitious rocker and moved back to California to be with him. "It was the first relationship I had had - I felt like we were two people who didn't have much but who had found each other," says Everly of the state of mind both brought to the romance. "I was looking for someone who wanted to get married, have a bunch of children and a station wagon." 

Neither she nor Rose had ever had a traditional family life. By his own account, Axl and his younger siblings, Stuart and Amy, had hellish childhoods.  According to Axl, he was sexually abused at 2 by his father, William, and allegedly beaten by his strict fundamentalist Christian stepfather, Steven Bailey.  Axl, who believes his biological father dead and is estranged from his stepfather, has also said that the anger he felt toward his mother, Sharon, contributed to his admitted misogyny. A bright but troubled student who joined the chorus and track team, Rose dropped out of his Lafayette, IN, high school in his junior year. By 1982, when he moved to L.A. with then girlfriend Gina Siler, 17, he had been arrested four times for minor offenses and placed in a court-ordered alcohol-abuse program.

According to Siler, now 28, Rose was alternately affectionate and abusive during their relationship, which ended three years after the move to L.A. "Tumultuous is putting it mildly," Siler says. "He could be kind and loving, and at other times he was violent and irrational."  As Everly would later be, Siler was moved by Rose's accounts of his early years. "Axl told me that when he was a baby, his real dad went insane, and his step dad was oppressive" she says. "I think he's always had this 'life owes me' attitude."

Everly too had endured a rocky childhood. Beset by drug problems, her father suffered a breakdown in 1963, was later hospitalized and received electroshock treatments. In 1970 he split from second wife Venetia Stevenson, a former actress (1958 Darby's Rangers), with whom he had three children: Erin, sister Stacey, now a 31-year-old California artist and brother Eden, 25 and a musician in L.A. "I never had bad memories of him," says Erin, who was 7 when her parents divorced. "I had no memories."  When Don Everly, pleading poverty, balked at paying child support, Stevenson took work as a clothing designer. In 1974 she moved the family from an upscale Studio City neighborhood to a more modest rented home in L.A. and the children transferred from the exclusive Buckley private school to public schools. A slow learner who suffered from dyslexia, Erin enjoyed being home and playing with her dolls and baby brother and, as she got older, offering emotional support to her mother. "I always felt like I had to look after her," she says. "I'm a caretaker."

She was also a magnet for Rose. After they moved in together in 1986, she continued modeling to pay the rent on their Hollywood apartment. Nights were spent accompanying him to the seedy Sunset Strip bars where he and Guns N' Roses bandmates, Saul "Slash" Hudson, boyhood friend Izzy Stradlin', Duff McKagan and Steven Adler performed. "When you're in love, you want to be with the person every minute," she says. "My life was taking care of Axl."

And a high-maintenance task it was. Guns N' Roses hit it big in 1987 with Appetite For Destruction - the biggest selling debut album in history - and Rose seemed ill-prepared to handle the pressure. He turned up late for shows and battled with police, security guards, fans and anyone who triggered his temper. Lawyers for ex-bandmate Adler claimed their client saw Rose throw a woman down a flight of stairs in 1990 after she refused to have sex with him.

According to Everly, Rose was bringing his tantrums home early on.  She can't recall the first time he hit her. "It's like an earthquake where after it's over you think, 'What was that?'" she says of beatings that often began over matters as trivial as stubbing his toe or being awakened by a ringing telephone.  "There's so much anger in him. Maybe I was this easy person to take it out on."  As Roses' career took off, Everly's faltered. In 1987 she abruptly canceled one of her last modeling assignments, a lingerie shoot. "She told me Rose had dragged her from her apartment and that she had abrasions up and down her body," says her New York City modeling agent, Faith Kates. In the end, says Kates: "it was sad. She'd had this sparkle in her eye, and it was gone."

Like many domestic-violence victims, Everly protected the partner who she now says beat her up. When her model friend Taryn Portman called the L.A. police after one violent episode in 1986, Erin told officers it was a false alarm. "I was really torn," Everly says. "Here was my best friend trying to protect me. But there was Axl (hiding behind the door). My fear was bigger than you can imagine."  According to Everly, Rose had no compunction about abusing her in front of others. Her friend Heidi Richman, an independent TV producer, says she witnessed Rose hitting Erin at a crowded 1987 barbecue at a house in the Hollywood Hills. "He was beating her, pulling her hair," says Richman. "He was like a rabid dog."  Despite pleas from friends and her mother to leave Rose, Everly refused. "I always believed things would get better," she says. "And I felt sorry for him. I thought I could make his early childhood suffering all better."

On April 27, 1990, says Everly, Rose, who by then had moved out of the couple's home and bought a luxury condo above Sunset Strip, showed up at her door unannounced at 4 a.m. As she tells it, he told her he had a gun in the car and that he would kill himself if she didn't marry him. On the long drive to Las Vegas, she says, he promised that he would never hit her again and never divorce her. Twenty four hours later they took their vows at the Cupid Wedding Chapel. One month later, says Everly, Rose first threatened divorce.  And two months after that, he beat her so badly she was hospitalized.  While Everly was in the hospital, he sparked a reconciliation by moving her belongings into his condo. Domestic bliss, if it ever materialized, was short lived. By then, Everly says, she was forbidden to see her friends and Rose, who had become a wealthy man, refused to give her money or even a door key; she claims that he often locked her out, then gave her permission to return only when he felt like it. Says Everly: "I used to go into the bathroom to cry. I'd turn on the water so he couldn't hear me, because that would set him off too."

In September 1990, Everly learned she was pregnant. "This was all I wanted," she says. "I thought it could have been a cure for Axl." If so, it didn't take: Everly says that Rose's elation quickly soured and that he threw her out of the condo and threatened to take the baby. When she miscarried in her third month, Everly had to sell her Jeep to cover medical costs. As Everly recuperated, Rose trashed the house in the Hollywood Hills they had been preparing to move into, causing $100,000 in damages.  Everly had finally had enough. In November of that year - after suffering that last beating, she says - she walked away. "I'd lost everything," she says. "I had no more fight and no more compassion for the abuse he had gone through."

After the breakup (the marriage was annulled in January 1991), Rose continued to try to contact Everly for more than a year, she says, sending her flowers, letters, and even caged birds. Everly, who received no financial settlement and camped with friends and family, sold her wedding ring for cash and in 1991 rented her own condo in the San Fernando Valley. "One day the phone rings," she says. "'Hello, it's Axl.' I moved the next day."  In 1992 she briefly dated Donovan Leitch, son of 60's troubadour Donovan; she also began psychotherapy. Ironically, Rose too began therapy around the same time, admitting in interviews that he was manic-depressive. "I'm trying to channel my energy in more positive ways," he said in 1991, "but it doesn't always work."

Last year, Everly began seeing actor David Arquette, 22, brother of actresses Rosanna and Patricia. At first Everly was so skittish she'd flinch if Arquette moved suddenly. "I don't know how many times I've had to tell her, 'I'm not going to hit you,'" he says.  Although Arquette encouraged her "to stand up and talk about" her ordeal, it wasn't until Seymour's lawyers subpoenaed Everly to testify about her experiences with Rose that Everly began to feel she was a victim [or jump on the "sue Axl" band wagon]. "She thought, 'It was my fault; he's not abusing Stephanie,'" recalls Taryn Portman. "So when that case became public, that did a lot of healing."

Rose's camp believes Everly is pressing the suit for monetary gain, but Erin, who lives in L.A. with support from family members, insists she merely wants to put the traumatic experience with Rose behind her. And though Arquette, now her steady, contends that Everly still fears Rose, she asserts that she no longer feels helpless. "It's not a matter of winning or losing," she says of the suit, which her lawyer hopes will be heard within the year. "I would like to give Rose back this pain. It doesn't have to be my burden anymore."

Stephanie's Secret: Axl's No Rose

Last October, five months before ex-wife Erin Everly filed her civil suit against Axl Rose, Victoria's Secret model Stephanie Seymour accused the singer of beating her up after an ill-fated 1992 Christmas party.  Rose had fired the first shot by suing the supermodel in August 1993, claiming she had "kicked and grabbed" him during the party at the Malibu home they shared and that she refused to return more than $100,00 worth of jewelry he'd given her as gifts. Counter suing, Seymour claimed it was Rose who attacked her, giving her a black eye and bloody nose. Angry because she had held the party after he had wanted to cancel it, he had slapped and punched her and kicked her down a flight of stairs, said Seymour, 25. When other defensive measures failed, she admitted, she "may have even grabbed his testicles."

Nevertheless, the couple, who had been dating since 1991 and living together for about three months, became engaged, Rose claims, the following Feb. 4, only to break up three weeks later when Rose accused her of infidelity.  Subsequently, engaged to publisher Peter Brant, 47, Seymour gave birth to Brant's son in December. [Ok now, three weeks after Feb 4 would be late February/early March. Exactly nine months (normal gestation period) after March is December. That's some pretty quick work to get over an engagement and have a baby with another man.]

If Rose hoped to take the offensive by filing first, the gambit may have backfired. To support her case, Seymour's lawyers subpoenaed Everly, who, Seymour claimed in her counter suit, had also been "physically assaulted and battered" by Rose. As he had done in her case, said Seymour, Rose "justified physically injuring Everly by claiming that she physically attacked him."

Jennifer Driver

Axl got with Jennifer after he and Stephanie split up.  She was featured in the Since I Don't Have You video.  I don't think Axl can make a video with a woman he's not romantically involved with.

Lindi Hingston

We first heard of Lindi's involvement with Axl when she told off on herself after having a one night stand with Pete Doherty, causing his break up with Kate Moss.  This was reported by the British tabloid, Sunday Mirror, on July 8, 2007.  It is not certain exactly when she dated Rose, but she listed him as one of her former lovers along with actor, Jared Leto.  Axl has been photographed with every woman he has dated and will generally admit to the involvement.  However, he is not photographed with women that he has only had sex with (that we know of) with the exception of the Swedish mystery blonde.  Considering that he went into seclusion after 1994 and emerged to the public in 2002, I have to assume that they dated during this time period.  She has also dated Belgian model, Anthaun, for the last three years.  This would cut her break up with Axl back to 2003-2004. On September 6, 2001, Axl was photographed in Malibu wearing what appears to be a wedding ring, though he was not reported to have been married.

Diane O'Connor

It is unknown how long Axl dated Diane.

They broke up after Rose slept with Sophie Anderton.

I have to assume that it was after he dated Lindi, but I'm not certain about that relationship either.

She is the ex wife of fashion designer, Michael Hilfiger (adopted brother of Tommy Hilfiger). 

They were at the Plumm together on May 18, 2006 when Axl got into a fight with Tommy Hilfiger. 

The infamous Hilfiger/Rose rumble at the Plumm was rumored to have been ignited by Rose's dalliance with O'Connor, but Michael H. insisted that the fling had nothing to do with the fight. 

They were seen a short time later (as of June 7) in England and broke up shortly afterward.

Sohpie Anderton

Sophie Anderton, born May 14, 1977 in Bristol, is a British fashion model.  She attended Redland High School for Girls in Bristol between 1988 & 1993. Anderton was catapulted into the spotlight after a prominent advertising campaign modeling Gossard bras. Her career since has never lived up to the early promise, but she has stayed in the public eye thanks largely to a following among the tabloid press, who have documented her party lifestyle (including a self-confessed night as a "high-class" call girl), love affairs (particularly with footballer Mark Bosnich) and cocaine addiction that lasted ten years. Anderton traces her addiction back to when she was prescribed morphine after a car accident as a child.  In 2004 she was a contestant on the fourth series of I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here, where she came fifth and is remembered for having a blazing row with the singer Natalie Appleton.  She is currently (August 2006) one of the contestants on ITV's Love Island 2006, and has caused controversy and entertaining television by imagining a relationship with former Boyzone singer and fellow contestant Shane Lynch.  Apparently, she isn't very well thought of in Britain where they refer to her as a spoiled brat.

Axl Rose sparked an unlikely romance with British model Sophie Anderton.  The revived rocker – who has finally started gigging again with a new incarnation of his band – hooked up with Sophie Anderton at her 29th birthday party last week.  Apparently the love bird’s eyes met across a crowded room at London’s Boujis club, and after a few coy looks the pair made a bee-line for each other and – against all expectations – got on a like a house on fire.  An onlooker told The People, “Sophie and Axl are like chalk and cheese, but they couldn't resist each other. Everyone was a bit surprised to see them get it on - but they just clicked right away."  This relationship was not commented upon by either side, but was reported on the Internet on Monday May 28, 2006.  Axl has not been seen with Sophie since August.  Apparently her swooning over Shane Lynch caused him to lose interest.

Mystery Blonde

Axl was seen with this tall blonde around June 26 at a restaurant in London, England.  According to the Daily Star, this was the sixth leggy blonde seen with Axl during his week-long stay in England.

Kat Mack

"The erratic Guns N' Roses frontman has been snacking on club-hopping model Kat Mack. The two have been dating for about three weeks and Mack has even been traveling with the band."  She showed up fresh off the plane from a GNR show in Athens to host the "Sun Silk Party" at the Plumm on 7/13/06. Of course, her relationship with Rose isn't without drama. We're told they met through Rose's ex-girlfriend, Diane O'Connor.

Sasha Volkova

Seen with Sasha at the Snatch night club in Miami, FL on October 23, 2006 and was with him in Malibu in November.  Credited in the Chinese Democracy notes for the Untitled Red Cross painting.  Despite all the flaming I read on various message boards, she must have meant something to Axl.