Mötley Crüe have announced a decisive victory in their hard-fought legal battle with Mick Mars. The founding guitarist claimed the legendary metal band unfairly fired him and stopped paying him after he pulled out of a world tour due to a chronic illness.
In a final arbitration award released Thursday (Jan. 29) in Los Angeles, a retired judge ruled that bandmates Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee and Vince Neil were entitled to fire Mars as chief executive and director of Mötley Crüe Inc. after he withdrew from a grueling U.S. stadium tour in 2022 due to his painful and disfiguring bone disease, ankylosing spondylitis.
Mars, 74, previously told Rolling Stone that he never fully retired from the band and remains available for residency or studio work. But the group fired him, he said, triggering the ugly legal battle that ultimately ended in arbitration.
Mick Mars has to pay
In the final decision, the arbitrator upheld the band’s dismissal decision and ordered Mars to repay $750,030 from an advance payment for missing 69 concerts. The judge also ruled that Mars must sell his shares in the band to Sixx, Lee and Neil for $505,737. After deducting the sales price, the arbitrator awarded Mötley Crüe a net payment of $244,293.
“This dispute was about protecting the integrity and legacy of one of the most successful bands in rock history,” the band’s lead attorney, Sasha Frid of Miller Barondess LLP, said in a statement. “Because the arbitrator dismissed all claims and enforced the parties’ agreements as written, the band has been fully vindicated – legally, financially and in fact.”
Lawyer criticizes verdict
Mars’ lawyer, Ed McPherson, sharply criticized the verdict. “The decision is terrible,” the lawyer told Rolling Stone. “That’s not fair. This band has never been fair to Mick. When Mick said he couldn’t tour anymore because of a terrible illness, but could still write, do individual concerts or residencies and record, they said, ‘Sorry, Mick. It’s been 43 years now, but you’re out. Goodbye, and we don’t want to pay you anymore.’ This referee said that was fine. We have to think about whether we… [die Entscheidung] want to challenge. It’s ridiculous. It’s just a question of whether he wants to pursue it. Basically he’s over Mötley Crüe.”
Speaking to ROLLING STONE in 2023, Mars made it clear that he was still angry. “When they wanted to get high and mess up, I covered for them,” he said. “Now they’re trying to take away my legacy, my share of Mötley Crüe, my ownership of the name, of the brand. How can you fire Mr. Heinz of Heinz Ketchup? He’s the owner. The legacy of Frank Sinatra or Jimi Hendrix lives on forever, and their heirs continue to benefit from it. They’re trying to take that away from me. I won’t let that happen.”
In court documents, Mars explained that he initiated the formation of the band, selected singer Vince Neil – even though Neil already knew drummer Tommy Lee from high school – and chose the name Mötley Crüe. Neil left the band temporarily in 1992, Lee in 1999. Both later returned. During their absence they remained shareholders but received no income from tours.
Mötley Crüe offered compensation
The former colleagues denied that they had abandoned Mars when he went public with his lawsuit in 2023. “Although the band owed Mick nothing – and Mick owed the band millions in advances that he had not repaid – the band offered Mick a generous compensation package to honor his career with the band,” Frid said at the time. “Manipulated by his manager and lawyer, Mick refused and decided to file this ugly public lawsuit.”
Mars also accused his bandmates of miming to pre-recorded tracks on their 2022 reunion tour. “Nikki’s bass was 100% recorded,” the guitarist told Variety.
“Tommy’s drumming, as far as I know, was to a large extent…Everything we did on that stadium tour was on tape, because if we hadn’t done that, if we had missed a part, the tape would have kept rolling and you would have missed it.”
In one Interview with ROLLING STONE Sixx strongly denied this. He also said that they had to use pre-recorded songs to cover up alleged problems with Mars’ guitar playing. “We really always tried to treat Mick with kid gloves,” he said. “We always stood by him. But we couldn’t let his side of the stage become a disaster. And now he’s only saying these things because he wants to harm us.”
In a press release announcing the tribunal’s decision, the band’s law firm said Mars was “forced under oath to admit that his statements were false. His expert witness confirmed that the band had played live, and Mars formally recanted his previous allegations during his deposition.”
