With his tattoos, sculpted beard, and immaculate
fashion sense, Dave Navarro is one of the most recognizable guitar players out there. But like many musicians, his life has not
been easy. Here are some of the darkest events that shaped
Dave Navarro. Navarro has had his share of well-publicized
tragedies, but possibly the most terrible one came when the aspiring guitar god was
only 15 years old. As NME reported, Navarro's mother, Constance
Colleen Hopkins, was murdered in March 1983 when her ex-boyfriend John Riccardi shot her
and another woman in West Los Angeles. Ultimate Classic Rock reports the murderer
spent almost a decade on the loose and was only captured because of a viewer tip after
the case was featured on America's Most Wanted in 1991. Riccardi was initially sentenced to death
in 1994, but in 2012 the verdict was set aside because of issues with the jury selection
process. This didn't mean Riccardi walked free, though,
as he was promptly re-sentenced to a life without the possibility of parole. The experience was particularly awful for
Navarro because he was supposed to be there on the night of the murders. "It was actually a miracle that I wasn't home
'cause I think that obviously if I was home that night he would've gotten me too." He attributes this turn of events to divine
intervention. Less divine, however, is the fact that he
still has to fight with the media over the portrayal of the incident. In 2018, Navarro was less than thrilled to
discover that Geraldo Rivera's Murder in the Family ran a factually erroneous episode about
the case. "As a teenager Dave loses the family member
he cherishes most, taken from him by a violent jealous man driven to kill." In a since-deleted Instagram post, Navarro
accused Geraldo of getting the story wrong, adding, “I did NOT find a body and I did NOT turn
to drugs after this event. I was well on my way to using drugs even before
this took place.” Navarro entered the limelight as the guitarist
of Jane's Addiction, and to say his entrance was explosive is a criminal understatement. Guitar World calls Jane's Addiction a "stink
bomb" that kicked the haughty hair metal bands that ruled the late 1980s airwaves off their
pedestals and served as a precursor for grunge with its anti-corporate attitude and raw sound. However, the fact that they burned bright
meant they also burned out quickly, releasing just two studio albums before self-destructing. In 1991, the band evaporated in a cloud of
personal chemistry issues brought on by their hectic touring schedule, which caused increasing
strains and fights both on and offstage. The leading personalities of the group, Navarro
and singer Perry Farrell, still can't agree on what ultimately caused the collapse. Farrell feels the breakup was, quote, "based
on emotional reasons" as everyone kept knocking down his ideas and he felt his creativity
was facing a wall. "We got into a big sockout, literally body
slam." Navarro, on the other hand, makes it clear
he thinks the band was ended by Farrell's intense personality, combined with the band's
copious drug use and the fact that they never even tried to talk about their differences. "He convinces you that it's got to be a certain
way, and then you know what happens? He's right. Every f---ing time. And you're like, 'g-------t Farrell." Of course, their 1991 breakup was far from
the final one - there have been multiple reunions over the years, but considering the band has
broken up more than once, it's possible their communication skills still leave something
to be desired. Living a lifestyle of sex, drugs, and rock
'n' roll is not necessarily conducive for long-term marital happiness, and Navarro is
no exception. According to Inquisitr, the rocker has been
married three times so far, and all of them have ended in disaster. According to MTV News, his first marriage
lasted 2 years and his second was annulled after only a month. Navarro's most high-profile marriage was his
third one, with actress Carmen Electra. In 2004, the two documented their road to
the altar in an MTV show called Til Death Do Us Part: Carmen & Dave, which unsurprisingly
gave the impression that the two were genuinely happy together. It wasn't meant to last, though, and in 2006
their marriage fell prey to the oldest of celebrity couple hindrances - conflicting
schedules. An anonymous source close to the former couple
said at the time, "The reality of it is that they're better
off as best friends." Navarro has multiple major bands in his resume,
but there have been whispers that an even bigger group once courted him for the guitarist
spot. In a 2010 interview for the Talking Metal
podcast, Navarro confirmed rumors that he once almost joined Guns N' Roses. This came close to happening when Izzy Stradlin
left the band in 1991, and Axl Rose even called Navarro to offer him a place in the band - but
it never came to be. Navarro says there were multiple reasons why
he was ultimately never welcomed to the jungle but that his significant heroin addiction
at the time was the main culprit. According to Guns N' Roses Central, the sad
story of a man who was living the rock star lifestyle too hard to join arguably the greatest
rock band of the time almost had a heartwarming epilogue when Navarro joined forces with Guns
N' Roses in the late 1990s to play on a song of theirs. Unfortunately, the song in question was "Oh
My God," which the fan site shrugs off as "forgettable." For years, Navarro nursed such an impressively
awful drug habit that Jane's Addiction might as well have been called Dave's Addiction. According to Detox to Rehab, the guitar player's
drugs of choice were heroin and cocaine, and his drug addiction wasn't exactly cured by
the lingering trauma, fear, and loss the murder of his mother caused. Navarro's 2015 documentary Mourning Son pulled
no punches about his addiction, and even featured graphic footage of his drug use from his younger
days. Fortunately, by the time the documentary came
out he was living a much healthier lifestyle. He stopped using both cocaine and heroin in
the late 1990s, stopped intravenous use altogether sometime around 2000, and says he's been completely
clean and sober since 2012. Navarro may be most famous for Jane's Addiction,
but as Guitar World points out, it's hardly the most famous band he has played with. From 1993 to 1998, Navarro was the guitarist
for the Red Hot Chili Peppers and was part of the recording lineup when they released
1995's One Hot Minute. However, it was a difficult time for everyone
involved. Not only did the band's faithful fans have
difficulty accepting Navarro as a full-fledged Chili Pepper, the band members seemingly couldn't
get out of bed in the morning without hurting themselves in one way or another. MTV News writes that Navarro's tenure in the
band was marked by a series of disasters ranging from motorcycle accidents to drug relapses,
and his exit was a weird mess of conflicting statements. Everyone involved praised each other and their
time together, but Navarro himself said he quit the band, while singer Anthony Kiedis
called the lineup shuffle a, quote, "completely mutual parting based on creative differences,"
and Guitar World says the guitarist was fired. The "creative differences" part is pretty
much the only thing everyone's narratives seem to agree on. Kicking a heroin habit can be difficult, especially
when your job requires you to revisit a past situation that had you at your worst. According to Alternative Nation, this was
the unfortunate scenario Navarro faced in 1997 when the recently reunited Jane's Addiction
started rehearsing. To make things worse, vocalist Perry Farrell
had not yet discovered the joys of sobriety, so when Navarro stepped in the room, a relapse
he later described as "epic" was all but imminent. Feeling that the music would be infinitely
better on heroin, Navarro decided his bottle of mineral water was unable to satisfy his
cravings. He and Farrell soon got so high that it evoked
an "Oh no, here we go again" reaction from drummer Stephen Perkins. Navarro describes the tour that followed as
one of the most over-the-top, drug-fueled things he has ever done, and says he was easily
the worst junkie of the band, using so openly and blatantly that he later called it dangerous
and disgusting - beven if he did have a pretty good time. However, one guy who enjoyed himself significantly
less was Red Hot Chili Pepper Flea, who took care of bass duties for the tour and as a
former drug addict was not a fan of Navarro's antics. In 2015, Stone Temple Pilots and Velvet Revolver
singer Scott Weiland, died in his sleep at age 48. It might initially seem odd that Navarro was
the guy who led the outpouring of tributes for the frontman, but as Alternative Nation
notes, the two were good friends. Weiland, according to Rolling Stone, suffered
from his own share of inner demons and substance abuse problems, and he died of an accidental
overdose on a tour stop in Minnesota. Weiland made a big difference in Navarro's
life and mental health outlook by hooking the guitarist up with his current therapist. Navarro still keeps Weiland close at heart
- in a 2018 Instagram post, he shared a photo of an unfinished letter Weiland had once started
writing to him. It reads: "Dave - My only real concern for you and I
is that…" Sadly, the letter will never be finished. The fame game is a difficult one, and sometimes
there are casualties. According to NME, one that hit Navarro particularly
hard was the death of Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell, who took his own life
in 2017 after struggling with depression for years. Cornell and Navarro knew each other, and when
they toured together in 2003 they fell into a habit of meeting people in rehab, hanging
out with them and helping them toward sobriety. While interviewing Cornell's Audioslave bandmate
Tom Morello in 2018, Navarro opened up about the profound pain he suffered when he heard
the news of the singer's death, saying, "To still have that hole in yourself, and
still feel that depression and loneliness and isolation, especially on tour, I identified
so deeply with that, and I felt so much loss and pain about that. That's the one that hit me the hardest." He claimed he put on Soundgarden and began
weeping inconsolably because he was so familiar with the kind of depression Cornell had been
fighting with. Navarro isn't one to shy away from talking
about his mental health struggles, particularly because doing so can help others in the same
situation. According to Billboard, the musician has been
as close to the darkest parts of the human mind as a person can possibly be. In 2018, the suicides of Anthony Bourdain
and designer Kate Spade prompted Navarro to write an Instagram post about his own disturbingly
close call with ending his life. At one point, things were so bad for the guitar
player that he actually wrote a suicide note, stockpiled pills, and even planned out how
to distribute his belongings to his surviving family. However, as a last-ditch effort he decided
to reach out to his loved ones, which was enough to stay his hand and make him decide
to seek professional help. Fortunately, therapists, psychiatrists, medication,
and hospitalization eventually pulled him back from that dark place. If you or anyone you know is having suicidal
thoughts, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-TALK (8255).
