How Did Vince Neil's Daughter Die?
She was only four years old.
YouTube Fans of Motley Crue, rock n' roll, and music biopics are digging into the new Netflix movie The Dirt. The film, based on the book The Dirt: Confessions of the World's Most Notorious Rock Band follows the beginnings and rise of the rock band Motley Crue.
The story of sex (SO much sex), drugs (SO many drugs), and rock n' roll takes viewers down a bumpy road for an unflinching look at what Nikki Sixx, Tommy Lee, Vince Neil and Mick Mars went through on their way to becoming, for a time, one of the biggest bands in the world.
One of the things that casual fans and others may not have known is that Vince Neil's four-year-old daughter Skylar died. How did Vince Neil's daughter die?
1. Who was Skylar's mom?
Vince Neil married Sharise Ruddell, a mud wrestler and model in April 1987. Their first and only child together was born four years later.
They named her Skylar. Shortly after Skylar was born, Vince and Sharise divorced.
2. She had cancer
When Skylar was 4 years old, she had abdominal pain that was originally thought to be appendicitis. Once doctors went to remove it, they discovered a cancerous tumor wrapped around her abdomen.
She had a number of operations to attempt to remove and/or reduce the size of the tumor but each time the doctors found the tumor to be worse than they had anticipated.
The tumor had exploded, spreading cancer calls throughout Skylar's body.
The tumor reportedly weighed six and a half pounds.
Neil revealed: "That's how much Skylar had weighed when she was born ... I had never seen anything like it before. It was the face of evil. It lay spread out in a metal pan, a nacreous mess of sh*t." Skylar Neil died on August 15, 1995.
3. How did Vince handle it?
After Skylar died, Vince Neil threw himself into his alcoholism again. He knew it was the worst thing that could ever happen to him.
In the months following Skylar's death, Vince found himself angry and suicidal and indulging in drugs and alcohol. In 2001, he said: “I would stay at the children’s hospital as long as they’d let me, then I’d drive straight to Moonshadows in Malibu and get liquored up with the regulars until I couldn’t remember my own name,” he said in 2001.
“I knew it was wrong to be drinking at this time, but it was the only way I could keep from going completely crazy.”
4. He missed her funeral
In the book The Dirt Neil wrote about how hard it was to attend the funeral. However in his own memoir, Tattoos & Tequila, he revealed that he could not bring himself to go to his little girl's funeral.
“There was no way I could go at that point,” he said. He soon added pills to his drinking because he blamed himself for Skylar's death.
He said: “I was confused and fucked up. Women, alcohol and golf were my tickets out of Realityville.”
5. The aftermath
In the years following Skylar's death Vince Neil established the Skylar Neil Foundation to raise funds for kids with cancer.
The foundation has raised millions of dollars to help with research and treatment.
Amy Lamare is a Los Angeles based freelance writer covering entertainment, and pop culture. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.