Anthony Kiedis, a member of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, has led a remarkable life. His 2004 autobiography, Scar Tissue, reads like fiction and details how nothing in his life has been conventional. His book has several stories that are really difficult to understand. There is a darker side to Kiedis’ life, including one horrific deed that he performed while he was in his 20s, despite the fact that his unique upbringing has made him the brave maverick able to swagger around on stage with his band.
Kiedis had an unusual childhood, and to say so would be an understatement of the century. The fact that he is still alive today, much alone a member of one of the world’s most popular bands, is truly a miracle. But his struggles are in no way an explanation for his history of repugnant behavior.
Kiedis and his mother had a very typical, humble existence in Michigan up to the age of twelve. However, the madness of California enthralled him when he would spend two weeks each summer visiting his father there in Hollywood. His childhood ended the moment he made the decision to live with his father full-time.
Under the guise of Blackie Dammett, Kiedis’ father was trying in vain to make it as an actor. But when acting employment dried up, he became desperate and started peddling narcotics to celebrities. Even at this young age, Kiedis was exposed to drugs; while the aspiring singer was barely a teenager, he and his father would frequently take cocaine or smoke pot together.
Sadly, Kiedis was just 14 years old when he tried heroin for the first time. When the mysterious powder in the house was mistaken for cocaine, it was a life-changing event that would result in decades of opiate misuse.
Since childhood, Kiedis has struggled to distinguish between good and wrong; this struggle has persisted into adulthood. Although he undoubtedly had a difficult upbringing, the artist has also hurt other people severely, which has probably affected them for the rest of their life.
Ione Skye, an actress and Donovan’s daughter, was barely 16 years old when Kiedis and her were introduced in 1986, making her a minor in the state of California. He was about 24 at the time, and they dated for a number of years. Kiedis even featured a photo of the pair in their undies in his memoirs. That connection, however, seems somewhat innocent in comparison to another that Kiedis acknowledged in Scar Tissue and which served as the basis for the Red Hot Chili Peppers song “Catholic School Girls Rule.” It came after Keidies had a brief flirtation with a fan he met backstage at a concert in Louisiana that persisted even after he learned of her age.
Kiedis wrote, “The next day we drove to Baton Rouge, and of course, she came with us, After we got offstage, she came up to me and said, ‘I have something to tell you. My father’s the chief of police and the entire state of Louisiana is looking for me because I’ve gone missing. Oh, and besides that, I’m only 14.’”
“I wasn’t incredibly scared, because, in my somewhat deluded mind, I knew that if she told the chief of police she was in love with me, he wasn’t going to have me taken out to a field and shot, but I did want to get her the hell back home right away. So we had sex one more time.”
When he was 14, Kiedis was also statutorily assaulted by his father’s girlfriend, and it appears that this experience left him with a distorted perception of reality.
Despite the fact that the incident happened more than 30 years ago, Kiedis has yet to publicly apologize for his behavior and express regret for what he did when he was a young adult. Furthermore, the band briefly revived “Catholic Girls School Rule” in 2007 despite the song’s obscene subject matter, indicating that the singer didn’t feel bad about what he did. These unsettling realities still cast a gloomy shadow over his professional future.
