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FHM
March 2003
TAWNY KITAEN
By Andrew Vontz
Sexily sprawled on a pool table in a dive bar in Venice Beach tussling the leonine mane that induced millions of wet dreams during the 80’s, 41-year-old Tawny Kitaen shows off a bod you can only pray your girlfriend will miraculously blossom into when she goes over the hill.
But it’s not Kitaen’s pillowy lips and perfect rack that command your attention—it’s her stiletto heels, and not just because they’re attached to one of the finest pairs of gams to ever do the splits on the hood of a car on MTV.
In April, Kitaen used her high heels to pummel her then husband, Cleveland Indians pitcher Chuck Finley, a beast of a man who stands 6’6” and weighs 236 pounds, and was charged with domestic abuse. In the wake of their divorce, Kitaen went into rehab for an addiction to pain killers and slapped Finley with a $12 million lawsuit.
Long before her life spiraled out of control and became the subject of an E! True Hollywood Story, Kitaen was making history as the hottest sex kitten on the hair metal circuit during the 80’s. David Lee Roth described her to FHM as, “the girl you call over to the house when you want everything you’ve ever dreamed of, fucked up.”
In 1984, she landed on the album cover of Ratt’s ‘Out of the Cellar,’ the band of her high school beau, Rob Crosby, and co-starred in Bachelor party. From there, she soared into eye-melting roles in four Whitesnake videos and married ‘snake frontman David Coverdale. Before she settled down with Finley in 1993, the rumor mill linked Kitaen to Tommy Lee, OJ Simpson, and Jerry Seinfeld.
Forget Kevin Bacon. Tawny Kitaen is the lasting cultural touchstone of the 80’s generation. And like leg warmers and sweater skirts Kitaen is back. This time she’s fronting the battle against domestic abuse—and looking damn good doing it.
All it took to send Chuck crying to the cops was a couple of kicks with a high heel. I know men that pay $500 an hour for that kind of treatment. How does a woman who’s 5’6” beat up her 6’6”, 236 pound husband?
She doesn’t. The kick was done in self defense. He grabbed me, held onto me, wouldn’t let go, so I kicked him. I just happened to be wearing a pair of heels—boots—that night and if he didn’t have my legs in that choke hold and up in the air, I wouldn’t have had to kick him to try to get away from him. It was a really dumb, stupid exchange that actually frightened me very badly. I called the police and they came out.
And you were lucky enough to go to jail. What was life in the can like?
In my case they put me in 22-hour lockdown. I was in solitary confinement for 22 hours out of the day for four days.
Did they give you crayons?
No. Absolutely nothing. I had just had the shit knocked out of me by my husband, just had my rights taken away from me by the police and next to me was a woman who had just murdered her two-year-old daughter. The girl next to her had lured her new boyfriend over to the house and then murdered him
I hope you’re not planning on using your heels on me. What did you learn in the spousal abuse class the judge sentenced you to?
It’s just so ironic. You believe in the system, you’re a good citizen and then you get in trouble for something you didn’t do and you get sent to anger management class and you get angrier. It’s like sending someone to prison and they become worse criminals.
Has Fox tried to rope you into the next celebrity boxing match?
Oh yeah. They tried. I said I wouldn’t do it if you guys promised me your network. Absolutely not.
Before the heel incident, you were sued for keying a car on both sides because you didn’t like the way it was parked. Was it one of those bullshit jobs where it took up two spaces or what?
This woman took up two parking spaces. Total bullshit. Very politely, I rolled down my window and said, ‘excuse me, can you park in the other parking space?’ She flips me off and walks in the store. I had to park a mile away. I come out and I key her door. She tries to extort ninety-thousand dollars out of me. And there was no charges or anything.
You’ve said that Chuck liked to beat strangers’ asses for fun.
He loves to fight. He used to say to me that one of the reasons he liked to play baseball is because he can get in a fight and not get thrown in jail. And he proved that with me. Watch the next game he plays and the team gets in a fight, he’s the first one off the bench. You’ll watch number 31 fly right out there.
Righteous. When Chuck was trying to win custody of your kids he was nice enough to forward your hundreds of prescriptions for Vicodin, Xanax, and anti-depressants to the court. How did you get hooked on pills?
It started with my migraines.
When did you realize you had a problem?
Long before I admitted it. You just get so scared and you just don’t think there’s any way in hell you can stop. You don’t get hooked on Vicodin because you’re happy. You’re running from something. You’re slowly trying to kill yourself. I think I probably would have achieved that had I not gone to jail. So everything that has happened is a blessing. I’m really happy that what happened in that car happened.
People had a lot more fun with drugs in the ‘80s. Were you on anything when you decided to pose for the cover of a Ratt album?
No. There was no drugs anywhere in my life until I started in with these migraines.
What were those guys stuffing their pants with?
Were they? I can’t talk about anyone other than Rob Crosby. He wasn’t stuffing his pants (laughs).
How did the rest of the rockers measure up to Tommy Lee?
In what way?
His penis.
Who even assumed I slept with Tommy Lee? I have no idea. I’ve only slept with three guys in my whole life.
You, too, huh? In 1984 you co-starred in Bachelor Party. . .
With Tom Hanks who beat the shit out of everybody on the crew.
Really?
No. . . (laughs)
You quickly became the toast of the Sunset strip crowd. What drew you to dating so many hair metal guys?
My first boyfriend in San Diego (Rob Crosby) happened to say, ‘I’m going to be a rock star,’ and I said, ‘okay honey,’ then I dated Tommy Lee for three weeks and then I married David Coverdale and all of the sudden I’m this rock chick. It just cracks me up. Like if I dated guys from my own high school, would I be a high school dude junkie?
My, my, my. Once Bitten, Twice Shy. What were you thinking about when you were crawling around on pianos and the hoods of cars in the four Whitesnake videos you starred in?
Damn, I wish I was getting paid for this. I never got paid. I wasn’t even the one who was supposed to do those videos. David and I were dating, they had another girl all lined up. The night before the shoot I went over to the director’s house and the director took one look at me and said, ‘call up the agency and fire the girl.’ There was no script, there was nothing. We called it jazz.
We call it magic. What’s your favorite memory from the Whitesnake era?
By the time that Whitesnake happened, all of the guys in the band had already done all their crazy things. We used to call it the geriatric tour. There were no women coming backstage. It was very calm, no booze, absolutely nothing. There was no staying up late and partying, carrying rock stars off.
Hmm. David Lee Roth told FHM you’re, “The girl you call over to the house when you want everything you’ve ever dreamed of, fucked up.” What did Diamond Dave want from you?
I love David Lee Roth. I know what David wanted from me. He wanted to sleep on my couch.
Come on.
We were just pals. He was such a gentleman to me. We ran into each other at a Club Med one time and he wanted to hit on one of the girls that worked there and I had this bathing suit that she wanted. Dave wanted my bathing suit.
In his autobiography, Crazy From the Heat, David Lee Roth also said that you worked through the whole Van Halen entourage from the sound man to the lighting director. How did that work,
David, kiss my ass. On my children’s life, that is not true. I went out with Pete Angeles. He was their lighting director. David used to love to pick up hookers on the Sunset Strip. He would do that all the time. This one night he wanted Pete and I to go with him, because David never liked to be alone and he was totally Mr. Cocaine, just coked out of his mind all the time. He wanted us to take him because he was so big and famous he couldn’t ever drive in his car alone and we had to cruise until he found one that he liked and put her in the back of our car. He was just disgusting. It just made me sick.
So you’re claiming you were never a groupie?
Groupies are girls that can’t get guys.
You never slept with Tommy Lee?
We messed around. We did. Definitely.
How does it feel to be the subject of an E! True Hollywood Story?
Fine as long as they do another one on me. I hope they don’t think my life is over.
The first time you tried to relaunch your career in the early ‘90s, you were the host of America’s Funniest People. What’s your next step?
I don’t want to go back to work. The big plans are to be an advocate for abused women and children of homes of domestic violence. That’s what I’m doing.
Any chance I can get you to come outside and crawl on the hood of my ’94 Taurus GL?
Yes, you can. And that doesn’t make me a groupie.
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