Axl Rose’s perspective reflecting on his early relationship with Erin Everly — raw, emotional, and layered with the chaos and vulnerability that defined both *Guns N’ Roses* and his personal life. It’s written in a tone that captures Axl’s candid, poetic edge while exploring the rise and unraveling of their bond.
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**Axl Rose: “When I First Met Erin Everly…”**
*By Axl Rose (as imagined through an intimate reflection)*
When I first met Erin Everly, I’ll be honest—I didn’t think too much of it. She wasn’t what I expected, not at all. At that time in my life, everything revolved around *Guns N’ Roses*—the music, the madness, the movement. We were this wildfire of sound and sweat, scraping through clubs, tearing up stages, chasing a dream that was bigger than any of us could fully grasp. The road ahead was loud, unstable, unpredictable. Romance? That was someone else’s story. My only love then was the music—and even that love was a little toxic.
But then… Erin. She walked into my life like a different kind of melody. Not loud, not flamboyant, just *real*. I was used to chaos. I *thrived* in chaos. The band was always moving—drugs, fights, noise, adrenaline. Nothing was ever still. But she had a quiet to her that cut through all of it. She had this calm that didn’t ask for attention—it just existed. Like the kind of beauty you only notice when you finally stop moving.
She was the daughter of Don Everly—from The Everly Brothers—so in a way, music was already in her blood. But she wasn’t wrapped in the scene. She wasn’t trying to be anyone. She wasn’t playing a role. Erin just *was*. Gentle but grounded. She had this mix of innocence and strength—soft but not weak, kind but not naive. That threw me off.
I remember the first real conversation we had. It wasn’t anything deep—just about where we were, the people in the room, something stupid someone said. But the way she listened… it wasn’t like she was just waiting to talk. She really *heard* me. And that wasn’t something I was used to. I was used to being watched, worshipped, or written off. She did none of that. She just *saw* me. The version of me that even I didn’t always recognize.
We started spending more time together, but I kept my guard up. I didn’t want to care. I couldn’t afford to. Vulnerability wasn’t something I wore well back then. Hell, it still isn’t. But little by little, she got under my skin. Not with pressure, not with expectation—just with presence. There was something in the way she’d laugh at the things I said when no one else even noticed I was joking. Something in the way her eyes didn’t flinch when I was angry, or manic, or spiraling. She didn’t try to fix me. She just stayed.
And I think that was what hit me the hardest—she stayed.
I didn’t make it easy. My moods were a battlefield. Fame was starting to set in. *Appetite for Destruction* was gaining steam, and suddenly we were going from dirtbags in a van to rising stars. The pressure was crushing. The industry wanted to own us, mold us, market us. And I was fighting that with every ounce of my being. Erin saw all of it—the fights, the fury, the nights I didn’t sleep, the mornings I didn’t want to wake up. She loved me anyway.
And I loved her. Fully. Messily. Desperately. She became this anchor in a sea of madness. And for a while, she was the only thing keeping me from drowning.
There’s a reason I wrote “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” That song wasn’t a gimmick. It wasn’t an industry move. It was *her*. Every lyric. Every note. She was the muse. She inspired something in me that I didn’t know I was capable of feeling. Vulnerability. Safety. Love. That song was me trying to put into words what it felt like to look at her and feel, for the first time, like there might be a future beyond the chaos.
We had good times. God, we had some beautiful moments. Laughing in bed until 4 a.m., dancing to old records, talking about nothing on the floor of my shitty apartment. She had this lightness that made life feel bearable. When I was with her, the world slowed down. The walls stopped closing in. I could breathe.
But love, real love—it’s not always enough. Not when you’re broken. And I was *so* broken.
I carried trauma like armor. Childhood pain I never unpacked. Rage that bubbled up without warning. Paranoia. Control issues. I thought loving someone meant *owning* them, protecting them to the point of suffocation. I didn’t know how to be soft and strong at the same time. I didn’t know how to love without fear.
And so… I started hurting the very person who was trying to love me the most.
Our relationship became a cycle—passion, eruption, regret, repeat. There were moments of heaven, but the moments of hell started creeping in. I was jealous. Possessive. Explosive. Erin saw sides of me no one else did—raw, ugly sides that I’m not proud of. She never deserved that. No one does.
In 1990, we got married. Las Vegas. Spontaneous. Impulsive. The way most of our relationship was. There was part of me that thought a ring might fix the cracks. That making it official would make it *stable*. But the truth is, marriage doesn’t heal wounds. It just puts them under a spotlight.
We lasted less than a year.
The breakdown was brutal. Painful. Public. And silent in all the wrong ways. We didn’t know how to communicate, not really. I couldn’t handle the vulnerability that real intimacy demanded. Erin tried—she really tried—but I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know how to let someone love me without pushing them away.
And losing her—*really* losing her—was one of the great tragedies of my life. Because beneath all the mess, all the dysfunction, I *loved* that woman. Deeply. She wasn’t just a muse. She was my friend. My mirror. My soft place. And I shattered that.
I’ve thought about her a lot over the years. Not in a fantasy way. Not in a “what if” romantic way. But in a human way. In a regretful way. I wonder what she’s doing. If she’s happy. If she ever found the kind of peace I never could give her. I hope so. She deserved better than what I was able to give at the time.
People still ask me about “Sweet Child o’ Mine.” What it means. Where it came from. And I always say the same thing—it came from a moment in time where love was still *possible*. Before the fame, before the fractures, before the fire burned everything down. That song is a photograph. It’s a reminder that even in the darkest of storms, there was light once. There was *her*.
Do I wish I could go back and do things differently? Yeah. I do. But the past is the past. And sometimes, the best thing you can do is tell the truth—especially when it’s ugly.
The truth is, Erin Everly was one of the realest people I ever knew. She walked into my life when I was a tornado, and she tried to be my shelter. I didn’t know how to accept that gift. I blew it away. But her presence left a mark on my soul—and on my music—that will never fade.
And maybe that’s the bittersweet beauty of it. Some people don’t stay forever. Some songs end. But the echo? The echo lasts.
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