Just like Sable, Lori’s style was an amalgamation of trash and full-on glamour. Lori drifted out of the groupie scene and briefly got back together with Jimmy in the early 80s she supposedly never got over the pain of their first breakup but has gone on to a stable career as a buyer in LA and has a son. Jimmy watched his former and current girlfriends fight it out from the safety of his room, laughing hysterically. When Bebe opened the door with the chain on it, Lori reached through, grabbing Bebe’s hair and trying to drag her out.
She fled but came back later and knocked on the door. The next day Lori went to the Hyatt where she found Jimmy and Bebe in bed together. When Bebe and Jimmy were leaving the party, she cornered them, screaming at Jimmy, “Why are you doing this to me?” but he ignored her and went to the Rainbow Room where he had a huge fight with Bebe over his cruelty to Lori. Out of her mind on Quaaludes, she stumbled around the party, bloodying her nose and soaking her white gown in blood. Bebe was Jimmy’s date for the Swan Song soiree, which Lori found incredibly upsetting since she was still in love with him. When she was 16 he left her for Bebe Buell, the Playmate who had recently been living with Todd Rundgren. His relationship with Pamela ended dramatically when he took her to a party for the band but left with Lori.īy all accounts, Jimmy and Lori were very in love and for the next year and a half she traveled often with the band. It was magnificent.” They started an affair that night, which was kept secret since she was only 14 and he was still dating Pamela. and Jimmy was just sitting there in a corner, wearing this hat slouched over his eyes and holding a cane. Interviewed in Hammer of the Gods, a biography of Led Zeppelin, Lori said that the room “was dimly lit by candles. She was the Seventies It Girl who lasted more than 15 minutes and earned her right to kiss and tell.Lori avoided his advances several times, later stating that she was frightened of him finally Led Zeppelin’s tour manager “kidnapped” her and brought her to the Hyatt and to Jimmy’s room. Rebel Heart has taken a critical drubbing for being flat and joyless, but Buell maintains an appealing, sexy, confessional tone. That's the tender side of Buell's story, her daughter, actress Liv Tyler, who grew up believing Todd Rundgren was her father until she saw her mother and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler together.
As Buell reminds us repeatedly, her looks kept her in business, and when her looks stopped paying the bills, her daughter did. And it's an unapologetic tale of sex (but nothing overly kinky), drugs (but no real tragedies or overdoses), wild (but not that wild) rock & roll nights, and the attendant hard (but never food stamp/ shoplifting hard) times. Her adventures and misadventures are documented in Rebel Heart, where no Stone is left unturned, no Rods left reeling, no Elvis is left in the building when Buell gets done spinning her tale.
Buell was the ultimate band accessory (Rod Stewart, Mick Jagger), not a groupie, the perfect rock & roll model girlfriend (Todd Rundgren), and a dream muse (Elvis Costello). No, but I knew who she was - as did anyone who read Creem and/or followed the New York press and its sprawling rock scene. "Do you know Bebe Buell?" Butler asked me as I was kissing Furs bassist Roger Morris. "I have to call someone," he mumbled, tucking the phone between his chin and shoulder and dialing.
In a Houston hotel in 1979, the Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler excused himself from my friend's clutches. Rebel Heart by Bebe Buell with Victor Bockris