Mötley Crüe's Nikki Sixx Backtracks on Sexual Assault Story He Told In 2001 Memoir

Nikki Sixx has backtracked on a sexual assault admission he made in 2001.

The Mötley Crüe bassist told Rolling Stone on Tuesday that he "possibly greatly embellished or made up" a story he told in the band's memoir The Dirt, in which he and co-founder Tommy Lee sexually assaulted a girl as a prank.

In the book, written by author Neil Strauss, he had claimed he was at a party when a woman he knew pulled him into a closet and they started having sex.

"We f--ked for a while, then I told her I had to go to the bathroom," he said at the time. "I went into the party and found Tommy, 'Dude, come here.' I grabbed him. 'I got this chick in the closet. Follow me, and don't say a word. When I tell you, start f--king her.'"

"In the closet, I stood directly behind Tommy," he continued. "He f--ked her while she grabbed my hair and yelled, 'Oh, Nikki! Nikki!'"

The guitarist claimed that when he awoke the next morning he didn't remember the incident, until the woman called him to tell him she'd been raped the night before. Although she said her attacker was a man who had picked her up while she was trying to hitchhike home, it made him realize he "had probably gone too far" with her too.

"At first, I was relieved, because it meant I hadn't raped her. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I pretty much had," he recalled. "I was in a zone, though, and in that zone, consequences did not exist. Besides, I was capable of sinking even lower than that."

However on Tuesday, Sixx — real name Frank Carlton Serafino Feranna Jr — backtracked on the story.

"The book was written in 2000 during a really low point in my life," he told Rolling Stone in a statement. "I had lost my sobriety and was using drugs and alcohol to deal with a disintegrating relationship which I still to this day regret how I handled... I honestly don't recall a lot of the interviews with Neil."

"I went into rehab in 2001 and really wish I would've done my interviews after I was clean and sober like I am today," he continued.

"I don't actually recall that story in the book beyond reading it. I have no clue why it's in there other than I was outta my head and it's possibly greatly embellished or [I] made it up," he added. "Those words were irresponsible on my part. I am sorry."

"There is a lot of horrible behavior in the book. What I can tell you is that we all lived to regret a lot and learned from it," the statement concluded. "We own up to all our behavior that hurt our selves, our families, friends and any innocents around us."

The book serves as the basis for an Netflix biopic of the same name, released on the 22nd of this month.

While that particular incident isn't depicted, director Jeff Tremaine told the publication: "It gets dark. The book has dark moments in it. I think a lot of these stories back then did. The rock & roll lifestyle was a crazy time back then."