NEWSStars Who Care: Nikki Sixx
Sep. 25 2007, Published 12:30 p.m. ET
As bassist for platinum-selling rock band Motley Crue, has certainly led the rock star life. But growing up, it wasn't all adoring fans and groupies.
Abandoned by his father at the age of three, Nikki was a runaway at 13. “I was basically a house built on an unsturdy foundation,” he reveals to OK!. But he was able to perservere in the face of adversity and addiction and now Nikki, who has been sober for years, takes great pride in Running Wild in the Night, a fundraising initiative for the Covenant House California that helps keep runaways and homeless teens off the street.
“It’s a wonderful organization,” Nikki explains to OK!. “Their outreach program alone is groundbreaking, but once they get the kids into the organization, what they do to get them on level ground, get them education, get them healthcare, get them therapy and eventually back into the system is just phenomenal to me.”
Given Nikki’s high profile in the music industry, he's been indispensable in creating a music program inside Covenant House. “Part of the hope is that the music program will give one incentive to stay,” he explains.
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Wanting to share his words of encouragement and survival without sounding like a lecture, Nikki recently penned the book Heroin Diaries and a soundtrack to coincide that takes a very personal look at his downward spiral in 1986. “There’s something in the book, in the brutal honesty, in the blood and guts and gore of addiction and also in the story of recovery that I think gives hope and faith.”
Twenty- five percent of the proceeds from sales of the book will go to Running Wild in the Night. Both Heroin Diaries and the Heroin Diaries Soundtrack are available in stores now.
By Alisandra Puliti
