2021.09.13 - Sky Documentaries - "Look Away" documentary (& related articles)

The video of the documentary has now been removed from YouTube.

Transcription of GN'R related part:
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Vicky Hamilton: Rock stars and industry people, they always seek young girls out because they’re the cutest and have the less experience. It happens all the time in the pop world. That’s, you know, where you have the youngest girls. There’s no shame in their game. They’ll just do it, you know? (laughs) When I moved to L.A. I was 21. I was a cocktail waitress. My dream was to be the best female band manager in the world and I feel like I kind of accomplished that for myself. Being a woman in the early ‘80s, there weren’t a lot of us in the industry, so you tried to be one of the boys, or at least that’s what I tried to be. The music industry is misogynistic, you know? It’s always been a man’s world in the music industry. The ‘80s were a decade of total abandonment and excess. There were big budgets. There was a lot of cocaine, drinking, drugging, shooting up, and all of that. The Sunset Strip was kind of the promised land for hard rock and heavy metal bands. All the bands were coming here. I got here just in time.

Ruben MacBlue (editor of Scratch Magazine): Hollywood, of course, is the big dream. And everybody comes to Hollywood. Basically, I had a camera around my shoulder all the time. All the labels are here and all the A&R people. My magazine was what they used to try to find new bands. I remember when I was talking to Axl Rose when he first got into the magazine and his band first started. You know, and I saw the band and I go, “These guys are great.” And then I saw Axl outside the Rainbow one day, “Axl, man, your band is great.” And he looks at me and he goes, “You’re the guy from Scratch Magazine?!” And I go, “Yeah.” And he’s like, like this. He’s going, “Wow” and he says, “You have made this scene.”

Vicky Hamilton: In the mid-80s, I was an agent at Silverlining Entertainment. And that’s when I first met Axl Rose. Axl called me on the phone and said, “Would you help us get some shows?” And I was like, “Well, send me a tape,” you know? And a few hours later, he played me a rough demo of a few of the songs that ended up on Appetite for Destruction. He had a voice like no other. I was blown out. I was just like, wow, this is really amazing. I don’t know, I just knew that he was going to make it.

The rehearsal space that Guns N’ Roses stayed in was a very small space. Guns N’ Roses would hang out there. The girls came around to the rehearsal hall. They had little campfires in the parking lot. It’s like, there was a little dark hole in the wall place (laughs). Axl got a girl up there and I don’t know what happened exactly, but he threw her out and locked the door, and she called the cops. Slash called me up and said, “Is it okay if Axl sleeps on your couch for a while?” And I said, “Why?” And he said that the cops were looking for him. And I go, “Well, what did he do?” And he’s like, “I’m not exactly sure, but it involved this girl.” So, you know, I let him come. I lived right off the Sunset Strip on Clark Street, like right by the Whiskey-A-Go-Go, and Axl showed up at the front door with his little suitcase and a garbage bag. Then a few days later, the cops were still looking for him, so they were going by the rehearsal place. And that’s why all the guys ended up staying with me, because they couldn’t really hide in plain sight, you know (laughs). My job was to look after the band. Guns N’ Roses was worried at that point in time. And I helped get Axl a lawyer, because the girl was pressing charges against him. The charges were dropped because there wasn’t any evidence. And he got off free. They didn’t have any proof.

I was a manager. I did what managers do. It’s like, I took care of the band. Did it help them in the sense of getting their name out there? Yeah, it probably did. You know, it’s like legendary Hollywood fable tale. They had played a lot of shows where there were less than 100 people and all of a sudden it’s, you know, 200 and then 300, and then the Troubadour is packed.  So it, like, helped build their career to some degree as well, you know. Mystery always helps the bands get signed.

Chris Weber: My perception of Axl… I mean, he didn’t change that much. I mean, I see behaviors that have changed that are noted in papers and, you know, in news things, and that’s not consistent with the person. But that would be consistent with a life, where, you know, fame happens upon you. Some people fall into that, sort of like become a little bit megalomaniacs or selfish. You do change.

Vicky Hamilton: Most rock stars are a little narcissistic, and they have sort of an actor personality sort of inbred in them. I think they kind of enjoyed it. Axl had a couple of personalities. One was a very sweet guy, and the other one was kind of demon dog from hell. If there was chaos and he didn’t like it, he could flip on a dime (laughs).

[Footage from St. Louis riot]

Ruben MacBlue (editor of Scratch Magazine): Myself and Robert John were the only two people that were allowed to take pictures of Guns N’ Roses and Axl was very adamant about that. One night, Axl came on stage. I’m in the pit there taking pictures and some guy behind me in the crowd was taking pictures. Axl jumped right off the stage, went right over top of me, landed on the guy, knocked him to the ground and pulled his camera away (laughs). And he wasn’t gonna take no shit from nobody. If he saw something he didn’t like, he wasn’t gonna let it slide. He was gonna confront them. And that’s the kind of guy he was. You had to be a bad boy at that time. You know, nobody wanted to go see a sissy band. You know, sissy bands were dead. You had to be a bad boy or just go home.

[Clip from the Axl and Slash MTV interview in May 1988 where Axl says he is “psychotic”]

Vicky Hamilton: You can’t manage the unmanageable. Well, that’s what I learned with Guns N’ Roses.

Sheila Kennedy: I think I was 22 when I went to the Cathouse with my girlfriend Suzy. As soon as we walked into The Cathouse, my girlfriend spots Axl Rose and she goes, “Let’s go over there” and I’m like, “Whoa, he’s gorgeous.” I was like, “He’s so freaking hot.” I said, “Alright, let’s go. Let’s go there.”
 
I’ve been on the cover of Penthouse Magazine four times, which is kind of unheard of. Then I became pet of the year in 1983. I mean, those were amazing times. I felt like I won the lottery. I mean, here I was, came from poverty, I could party all night, sleep all day. I had the lifestyle of a rock star. And we were pseudo-celebrities back then, Playmates and Penthouse Pets, and we would get introduced to everyone because of, you know, my Penthouse status.
 
We were introduced to him, we were hanging out with Axl and he invited me, I won’t say her name, but this model - I’ll just call her "B." -, Riki Rachtman, some hanger-ons to come back to his hotel and party some more. It must have been 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, we were still partying, drinking… And then I go to use the restroom in Axl’s room, and I noticed in the restroom there was all this medication. And I was like, “Oh my goodness, so he’s on coke, he’s on pills, he’s on lithium, he’s been drinking all night…” I mean, you know, we were all drinking and doing drugs – it’s like, that was a scene. As I come out of the bathroom, he sees me and he puts me up against the wall, like, gently and he’s… like, we were kissing. It’s really sexy, it’s really hot and he’s like, “Yeah, this is good.” But then it turned into this really weird thing. Axl starts going at it with B. and he starts, like, really going at it with B. and I’m like, “Oh God, I don’t want to be in here.” And I was like, “Okay,” so I go in the back bedroom.
 
And then, probably 20 minutes later, we could hear all the screaming, and yelling, and glass breaking in the other suite. He was verbally abusing the model, B., and she ran out. And then, all of a sudden, I hear Axl coming down the hallway, screaming at the top of his lungs and saying, “Get the fuck out of here! Get the fuck - what are you doing back here? What are you doing back here?!” You know, I didn’t know what to say. I was, like, in shock, first of all because here’s this really nice guy kissing me and making out with me, and now all of a sudden he’s Dr Jekyll. Then he comes for me, and I look in his eyes and I’m like, “Oh my god,” like, “Okay, he’s really freakin’ losing it. He is angry, I don’t know what he’s capable of doing.” And as I’m trying to leave the room, he grabs the back of my hair and he gets a really good hold to the back of my head, and he literally starts pulling my hair and pulling me through the hallway, and I fall. And as he’s pulling me, my knees are scraping against the shag rug and I notice that they’re bleeding now. And as I get to his room, he pulls me back up. Then, all of a sudden, he just tosses me on the bed. My legs are still bleeding and stuff, and I’m crying. Within seconds he turns into a different person. Like, now he’s quiet, he’s not screaming, he’s not yelling, he’s not trying to hurt me. And he sees that I have blood on my legs and stuff like that, and he literally just starts apologizing to me and he goes, “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so, so sorry.” And he gently pulls my hands behind my back, and he ties me up, and, like, then we start having sex. It was consented. I allowed it to happen and it was okay. It was… he was fine. And then after it was all over with, I was thinking, “What the hell is going on here?” like, “what just happened.”
 
What I signed up for was a one-night stand. That’s what I thought I was going to get. And then it turned into something really ugly. I kind of signed up for it. I was in that situation, I put myself in that situation. I did not consider it rape, I… it was consensual, that’s why I never went to the police or reported it. I just dealt with it. I felt so embarrassed and humiliated. Really. Honestly. It’s tough to tell somebody, “Oh yeah, this is what this guy did to me.” Once it was over with, I felt dirty, I felt the shame. I felt the stuff that he should have been feeling. I don’t want to cry, but that’s really the truth, like, I put myself in that situation and that’s what I deserved. You know, I carried all the dirtiness of him, all the stuff that he did to me, I carried it around. Even to this day, to talk about it it’s very emotional because, why isn’t he feeling that? I can say this now that… I didn’t deserve any of that. I did not deserve any of that. And shame on him, you know? And I know that I’m not the only one that he’s done this to. I actually went years later and googled his name, and found out all these horrible things he had done to other women that were famous models and actresses.

Chris Weber: Fame provides an opportunity to be removed from consequences. You don’t really have a good gauge of how you’re impacting other people. It kind of breeds this sort of sense of sort of like, “I’ll just do whatever I want until somebody holds me accountable”, which never seems to happen.

Ruben MacBlue (editor of Scratch Magazine): The band managers would condone the bad boy image even to the point of the drugs and the girls and everything. And when you become so big and so famous that everybody likes you, you can do whatever you want.

Sky News, September 21, 2021: Updated version of a preview article containing comments from Axl's lawyer:

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Steven Tyler, Axl Rose and 'lots and lots of others': Rock stars and the abuse hidden in plain sight

Look Away is a new documentary about rock music and how the industry fostered a culture of aggressive sexual behaviour and turned a blind eye to relationships with teenage girls - featuring allegations against Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Guns 'N' Roses' Axl Rose.

"There are so many stories," says Sophie Cunningham, wearily. "So many I was just not able to tell, and that's because of money and power - success and celebrity goes a hell of a long way to keeping people quiet."

Cunningham is the director and producer of a new documentary confronting the music industry's dark side, rock music in particular; harassment and abuse against women and "relationships" involving megastars and teenage girls, an issue that was hidden in plain sight for years.

Look Away features interviews with women who make allegations against Aerosmith's Steven Tyler and Guns 'N' Roses frontman Axl Rose, as well as the late music producer and songwriter Kim Fowley, who managed all-female teen rock group The Runaways, co-founded by Joan Jett in the 1970s. But Cunningham says there could have been many more.

Post #MeToo, Hollywood and the film industry has had the start of its reckoning after disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein was jailed for rape and sexual assault in 2020, although it seems sadly inevitable that there is more to come.

For the music industry, says Cunningham, who worked on Look Away for two years, we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. To clarify, the allegations made by other women she couldn't feature in the documentary - she's talking about "lots and lots of [stars] who are very, very popular".

Look Away shines a light on how the music industry fostered a culture where relationships with underage girls - statutory rape - were normalised, and how many behind the scenes turned a blind eye to aggressive sexual behaviour.

"It seems like an area that hasn't yet had its #MeToo moment and I think desperately requires it," says Cunningham.

Julia Holcomb's story is well documented, despite the fact she never wanted to share it - it was Tyler himself who first brought the story to light, writing about their relationship in his 2011 autobiography.

Holcomb met the Aerosmith frontman as a fan at a gig in Portland, Oregon, when she was just 16 and he was in his mid-20s in 1973.

Because the age of consent in the state was 18, she claims Tyler persuaded her mother to sign over guardianship to him, making her his ward, so she could travel with the star on tour. She also claims she became pregnant with his baby, and had an abortion after coming under heavy pressure from him.

Through the lens of 2021, laid out in black and white, it all seems pretty shocking. But perhaps more shocking is that for years, this kind of behaviour wasn't at all shocking.

"I think a lot of the times the artists themselves have written about their escapades with their girlfriends or what they got up to during this era and you never really hear from the women," says Cunningham.

"Musicians were these godlike creatures, especially at that time. There were power structures that enabled them; as long as they were selling records and as long as they were making money for the big record companies, I think there was a general understanding [they] could pretty much get away with anything and also it could all just be written up as an excess of the time.

"It's very, very easy to think 'It was different then, it was hedonistic, the world was a different place'. But I think it's clear from the women who've spoken out that their experiences as [teenage] girls impacted them in the same way that they would if it happened to [teenagers] now. It's not a different era, it's just that we look at it differently."

Sheila Kennedy is another woman featured in the documentary, speaking about an experience with Axl Rose in the late 1980s. Kennedy was a Penthouse "Pet of the Year" and says she was invited back to a party at a hotel suite with the star. She accuses him of physical abuse - grabbing her hair and dragging her - before they had sex.

Jackie Fuchs, bassist with The Runaways - who was known as Jackie Fox at the time - also shares her story, accusing Fowley, the band's manager, of rape, and detailing how people ignored it at the time.

Speaking out like this is not necessarily about seeking justice in the legal sense, says Cunningham, but having a voice - and trying to instigate change.

"Although we are focusing on a certain era in this film, the music industry is still functioning in a very, very similar way," she says. "I spoke to so many music industry insiders who made it quite clear that nothing has changed. [The documentary] looks at an era I think we all feel very fondly towards, but we need to look at it in a different way. You don't want to take away from [the music] but you have to recognise that other things were at play.

"All of the women in the film are incredible women in the sense they're forgiving and they aren't 'out to get' these rock stars. It's about setting the record straight. For many of them, it's a personal reckoning. I don't think it's a case of wanting to get their own back or tearing anyone down... It's actually not about the rock stars at all, it's about these women and it's about them being heard - so that people don't just make the assumptions that I think a lot of people make about some of these women."

Post #MeToo, Cunningham says the world is hopefully finally ready to listen: "Culturally, we're all thinking in a different way. I think that there hasn't been an opportunity or a hunger until now to actually hear these stories in a way that challenges our ideas of what the rock scene was.

"So many people, when you tell them you're making a film like this, they're like 'Oh, no, please don't' - and then they name their favourite rock star because they don't want that musician or that music to be ruined for them. This music is so deeply embedded in our lives, I think sometimes people don't want to [acknowledge] there can be a darker side."

Cunningham says there were many men who worked behind the scenes who did not want to take part in the documentary. "I think that's important thing to say," she says. "That silence, I think, speaks volumes. So although we're in a time that we've been ready for these women to speak and they feel like they have the power to speak, there are lots of men who don't want to speak out in support of these women for fear of the repercussions in the industry."

Representatives for Tyler did not respond to requests for comment. Sky News also contacted Axl Rose's representatives, and legal counsel Douglas Mark Esq at Mark Music & Media Law, PC responded: "I can inform you that any allegations of physical or sexual abuse against Mr Rose, whether by 'Sheila Kennedy' or anybody else, are false and unsubstantiated."

Cunningham says she likes to think there might come a time when musicians, or any public faces, who behaved in a certain way when it was normalised years ago, want to acknowledge mistakes and help bring about change.

"Wouldn't you want to speak out and support these women?" she says. "Yes, accusations are being made about you, but maybe speaking out can actually, not redeem you because obviously all of these things have happened, but wouldn't it be incredible if a rock star came forward and said 'I did some really bad things and I know I hurt people and I want to campaign for change in support of these women?' I think that would be incredible.

"But I think silence is just an example of what many people have been doing for years. As I said, there were so many people I approached to be in this film who are prominent men within the music industry, offering them the opportunity to speak out in support of women, about a time that they were part of, and so many people didn't want to do that. And I think that silence speaks volumes, doesn't it?"

https://news.sky.com/story/steven-tyler-axl-rose-and-lots-and-lots-of-others-rock-stars-and-the-abuse-hidden-in-plain-sight-12403960

Sheila Kennedy had previously told the story with more detail in her memoir "No One's Pet" released in January 2016, which she promoted with an interview in the Daily Mail in February 2016.  

The excerpt from her book:

The Daily Mail article and video interview, February 4, 2016:

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Former Penthouse Pet of the Year and live-in lover of Bob Guccione tells how a drugged up Axl Rose grabbed her by her hair, dragged her across the carpet, tied her hands behind her back and had sex with her - then said 'sorry'

If Sheila Kennedy has one regret about that night it's that she didn't listen to her gut and leave.

She knew as soon as she walked into the bathroom and saw bottles of prescription medication added to the mounds of cocaine and alcohol being consumed - it could turn ugly.

But she was riding high; she was a Penthouse Pet of the Year, used to partying with musicians, actors and athletes. She pushed her fears aside and carried on.

Earlier she had no clue who Axl Rose, lead singer of Guns N' Roses was. She just thought he was 'gorgeous' when she'd seen him in Manhattan's Cat Club.

Now she was partying with him in his suite. It seemed like so much of her life – a fantasy.

Only this one was about to sour. Returning to the room she discovered everyone else had left.

She claims that Axl grabbed her by her hair, cutting her legs as he dragged her across the carpet and threw her forcibly, face down onto the bed.

He tied her hands behind her back and he had sex with her. And when he was done he apologized.

Today Sheila Kennedy, 53, carries no scars from the incident and is positive about this and much of the life that she lived as a Penthouse Pet.

In an exclusive interview with Daily Mail Online she recalls that night as just one of many wild experiences across a decade of living the life of a Penthouse Pet - a status that saw her pampered, coddled, manipulated and used by turns. [...]



Sheila Kennedy: I met Axl and it was right after them coming off the tour that they had and he was at a nightclub, the Cat Club in Manhattan. I guess Riki Rachtman kind of ran the show, that was his little sidekick at the time. They had done Headbanger's Ball on MTV and so they were always like kind of a… they had a bromance going. And so my girlfriend was more into the whole heavy metal scene and I didn't know who he was. I just thought, “Wow he's gorgeous”. You know, he had this long red hair and scruff on his face, and I was like, “Wow, who is this guy?” And she goes, “You don't know who that is?” And I said, no. She goes, “It's the lead singer of Guns N' Roses”. I was like, okay. So we walk over and we're hanging out and he was like, “Do you wanna go to the after party at our hotel?” And I was like, “Sure”. And he says, “Get rid of your friend”. And I said, “Why?” And he goes, “She's a little plump. We need, like, maybe you could go pick up a model or something or don't you have any other girlfriends?” I said, “I don't know anyone here”. And then of course, my girlfriend knew this other girl, and she was a model and she was gorgeous. And so we all go back to the hotel and they’re all doing drugs, and, I mean, it's a scene in there and it's straight out of Boogie Nights. You know, there's cocaine everywhere, there's pills, there's champagne… And I just happened to go into his bathroom and I'm looking around. Just went to the bathroom, and everybody's in the living room, and I look around and I see bottles of lithium and all this stuff. And I'm thinking, he is about to explode. This guy is on everything right now. And I kind of got scared because I had heard that combination was kind of an ugly thing. And I just knew in my gut that it was bad. And so that ended up being not a good thing. And then he wakes up the next day and disappears, I'm still in the hotel, and he goes to the Howard Stern show, and he was late for the Howard Stern show. He said, “What happened to you?” He goes, “Nobody comes to my show late”. He goes, “Oh, I was up all night with a Penthouse pet”. So then Howard Stern said, “Oh, then that's okay”.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3430098/Former-Penthouse-Pet-Year-live-lover-Bob-Guccione-tells-drugged-Axl-Rose-grabbed-hair-dragged-carpet-tied-hands-sex-said-sorry.html

As we know, Kennedy sued Axl in November 2023, Axl denied the allegations and the case was settled out of court with Axl maintaining his innocence:

https://www.a-4-d.com/t8102-axl-sued-for-sexual-assault-that-allegedly-took-place-in-1989