Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine recently that it was quite “hard” for him to fire David Ellefson more than a year ago. It came upon after after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist surfaced the social media. Ellefson was in Megadeth from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.
Dave Mustaine opens up on the incident
At the time, Ellefson released a statement on Instagram denying all social media chatter that he “groomed” an underage fan. He also filed a report with the police department in Scottsdale, Arizona alleging unlawful distribution of sexually explicit images of him by unknown offenders.
In a new interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Mustaine reflected on Ellefson’s latest exit from Megadeth, saying: “With everything that had taken place over the past, 10, 20 years with my relationship with our past bass player, it just became time to… it’s so uncomfortable for me to talk about. It was hard on me letting him go. And I’m happier now than I’ve ever been.”
Mustaine ended up hiring Testament’s Steve DiGiorgio to re-record Ellefson’s bass parts on Megadeth’s upcoming album, “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!”, because he is “one of those just really amazingly talented players,” Dave told Rolling Stone.
In the police report that Ellefson filed in May 2021, he admitted that he had been exchanging sexual text messages with a Dutch teenager, who captured a video of several of their virtual “masturbating encounters” without his consent and shared them with friends.
Ellefson noted that the woman was 19 at the time of their first virtual sexual encounter. Ellefson, who lives in Scottsdale, first became aware of the video on May 9, 2021, when the claim “David Ellefson of Megadeth is a pedophile” appeared on Instagram. Ellefson told police he was notified on May 14, 2021 by Megadeth that the band would be parting ways with him. Three days later, he was fired.
