We now know how Tommy Lee broke his ribs.
His wife Brittany says, “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 from the tree pushing them up. And everything was fine. I actually fell up the stairs a few times getting groceries, but whatever.
“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.
“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.”
As a result, Lee has only been playing on four songs, with Tommy Clufetos filling in for the rest of the set. But on Saturday in Philadelphia, Lee upped it to eight.
The next show on The Stadium Tour with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett is tonight, Tuesday, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
REUTERS PHOTO
