Jane’s Addiction frontman Perry Farrell discussed being an escort when he was younger in a Rolling Stone interview.
You had a rough relationship with your dad and left home at 17 – how does that affect the way you raise your kids?
As busy as we are, our first consideration is our family. You’re a shepherd. If you lose a sheep, a sheep can get messed up. I remember coming out to California and how many wrong situations I got in. I just told my wife, Etty, about the time where I went on this one yacht and I was – honestly – I was an escort. And she goes, “Wait a minute. …” And I said, “Well, you know, Etty, it wasn’t like I signed up and I knew that I was going to end up an escort!” You’re alone in the world, and people prey on you. And you’re thinking, “A yacht? Yeah! All the booze you can drink!” My girlfriend at the time bailed on me for the guy who owned the yacht. I can laugh about it now, too, because I don’t know where the hell she is, but I guarantee she’s not on that yacht anymore.
Is there anything that makes you feel old these days?
My kids do, just because they don’t think I’m that cool. It’s like, they go to Lollapalooza, but they don’t want to walk next to me. That killed me. I’ll go, “Let’s go,” and my boy will be with his friends, and he will stand there and I’m going, “Come on, man, let’s go!” He goes, “Do I gotta walk with you everywhere?” That moment I felt really old, like, damn, I’m not that cool. So I tried everything. I go skateboarding with him, which is all right because I can skate pretty decent, by far the oldest guy there in the bowls.
