Tommy Lee’s chaotic explanation for going full-frontal on Instagram is very on brand

Sometimes the simplest answer is the right one.

After rocker Tommy Lee said “to hell with the rules” and shared a full-frontal selfie with his 1.5 million Instagram followers earlier this month, many wondered… why?

Was it, as his caption claimed, all a big “Ooooopppsss”? Nobody was buying that.

Or could it have been some crude-but-shrewd marketing to get more people aware of his new music? Lee’s Instagram bio includes a link to his “new album, ANDRO,” after all.

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Related: Tommy Lee goes full-frontal on Instagram and the Internet has thoughts

Well, it turns out the album was actually released in 2020, so there goes that theory. Also, it might be time to update that bio.

Lee provided the messy context this week to a crowd of fans in San Antonio, Texas, attributing his overshare to being on a “mother f*cking bender.”

“A couple of weeks ago, we had like a two-week break off the tour, and I went on a mother f*cking bender, bro,” Lee, 59, said. “I got f*cking sideways as f*ck and got naked and posted pictures of my d*ck.”

After informing the audience that “usually” prefers to see women’s breasts (he used slightly different wording that we don’t care to repeat), he added “tonight is equal-opportunity night. Tonight I wanna see everyone’s d*ck. C’mon boys, pull your sh*t out. Pull your f*cking junk out. Let’s go.”

His request did not yield any takers.

Watch:

Lee’s endowment re-entered the zeitgeist earlier this year via the Hulu series Pam & Tommy, which told the story of Lee’s infamous sex tape with ex-wife Pamela Anderson. In one scene, Lee (Sebastian Stan) converses with his penis, which was voiced by Jason Mantzoukas.

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The musician followed up the original post by sharing an image of a nude man standing in front of an elephant with the text: “How do you breathe through that little thing??”

We’re guessing that was part of the bender, too.

While many commenters had fun with the revealing post, others were quick to call out the generally amused response it received as a double standard.

Jennifer Savin wrote on Cosmopolitan:

Could you imagine the stark difference in replies if, say, a fellow female musician decided to share a vulva photo? Look at how Kourtney Kardashian was shamed for posting a semi-nude image, with trolls more than happily letting her know they found it unacceptable for her to strip off as a mother (Tommy Lee is a father of two, by the way). Ditto Britney Spears, who has been cruelly ‘called out’ for her naked posts.

We’ve also reported on Instagram users getting banned altogether for posting less explicit content, but the rules are likely different if you’re a vaguely household name.