David Ellefson Continues to “Bare It All” Regarding Sex Scandal That Got Him Fired from Megadeth
By this point, we’re all intimately aware of what caused ex-Megadeth bassist David Ellefson to get jettisoned out of Megadeth with insane quickness back in 2021. To sum it all up, he got involved with a 19-year-old fan and got a video of him jerkin’ the gerkin posted all over social media as a result. The act was consensual — the posting of the video wasn’t — and honestly it should have all ended up a really embarrassing whole lot of nothing — well, unless you’re his kids or his wife.
But that ended up not being the case, as Ellefson was fired from the band he’d been in for most of his life, leading to him having way more free time to pursue all his other projects. Now, more than 950 days after the fact, Ellefson continues to talk about it, even if he’s not on speaking terms with his former band.
During a recent interview with Metal Hammer, the Dieth/Kings of Thrash/Lucid musician once again opened up about the situation, making the claim that Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine was hell-bent on tossing Ellefson, even though other people weren’t so ready to get rid of him.
“Dave, his manager and his lawyer [called me after the scandal]. There was a sentiment from one of them saying, ‘Let’s step back, let Ellefson deal with it. It leaves the door open for him to come back.’ Dave didn’t want that. He made his decision and it is what it is.”
It’s no secret that the relationship between Big Dave and Little Dave had been rocky since 2002. You may recall that after Megadeth broke up following Mustaine’s wrist injury, the bassist got involved in a lawsuit against Mustaine that ended up causing a major rift between them. It’s not hard to imagine a world where that animosity, along with an unwillingness to have Ellefson’s dick associated with all of the band’s headlines for some time, served as the catalyst for the bassist’s firing.
Now that he’s been so far removed from the situation, Ellefson looks back on how he was kicked out of Megadeth whenever asked in interviews about that situation. He’s since gone on record saying it was regrettable that things went that way, but lately he’s taking a more “fuck it” approach to the scandal itself.
“There’s two sides to it. One: when you bare it all, you’ve got nothing to hide. Fuck it, now you can truly be yourself. We all come into the world with our birthday suit on, so what are we ashamed of? What I feel the worst about is the embarrassment that it caused some people, like my family, who didn’t deserve it. Out of respect for them, I’m going to keep the family dynamic off the table [during interviews]. That’s at their request.”
Looking to this year, Ellefson’s surely got a bunch on his plate, including new music and a “bass warrior” European tour. Definitely check out the rest of the Metal Hammer interview with Ellefson when it comes out in their upcoming issue this Thursday.
