In a recent interview with Sense Music Media, David Ellefson revisited the topic of his departure from MEGADETH over two years ago. This came shortly after sexually suggestive messages and explicit videos featuring the bassist were shared on Twitter.
When asked about the musicians who provided him with significant support during the initial months following his dismissal from MEGADETH, Ellefson replied: “Well, first of all, pretty much everybody. Because it was a bulls**t situation. Twiggy from MARILYN MANSON… [Laughs] A whole bunch of people who I’d been friends with. Nergal [BEHEMOTH frontman] has become a friend. And I know he publicly spoke out in my defense and was very supportive to me. And I didn’t even know him. I was a fan of his band. I just met him recently here when we were in Poland with DIETH, and now I’ve become definitely friends with him. He’s a real mensch; he’s a standup guy; he’s not afraid to speak up and step up. And I think that says a lot about someone’s character.”
“I read something really great. Jason Flom, who is [from] Lava Records. He signed a bunch of great stuff — TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA. Just a great guy. He put up something the other day. He said, ‘I’d rather be excluded for who I included than to be included because of who I excluded.’ And I thought, ‘Man, that says it all.’
“What I found out is the people who distanced themselves from me are the ones who were guilty of s**t way worse than anything I f**king did,” he continued. “Let me tell you that right now. And that’s where some friends came alongside me and said, ‘Man, I had something similar happen. And when my band or my boss or my people distanced from me, it’s, like, the mirror popped up’ of, like, ‘Oh, s**t’ — they saw themselves in the mirror. Which is why I set out immediately to settle the score — meaning, to say, ‘F**k you. How dare you do this to me, or anybody?’
“Of course, everybody immediately, ’cause everybody’s trying to protect their reputation and their public image and all that… I mean, I understand — I understand on one level the embarrassment or whatever of, like, ‘Oh my gosh. What is this?’ But it’s, like, man, I think sometimes in situations that we’ve been in the longest, we find out we really aren’t that close after all, at the end of the day.
Ellefson added: “I knew that when I came back to MEGADETH in 2010, I saved their f**king a*s, because there was no one else who was gonna be playing Rust In Peace [in its entirety on that tour], and it was a perfect setup for that. And, you know, look, after 11, almost 12 years there, if that journey’s over, well, move on. And I didn’t sit around and lick my wounds and cry. I’m not making a career now of throwing rocks at them. It’s, like, why? Just f**king move on, man. So I had a lot of really wonderful supporters — like I said, pretty much everybody. And look, I think the other reality of it is a lot of people kind of [went], ‘Oh, s**t. That could happen to any of us,’ some related thing like that, the sort of celebrity shaming and all this kind of s**t. Look, you live, you learn, you move on.
