Axl Rose Claims Guns N’ Roses Sabotaged by own manager

 

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Welcome to the jungle, Irving Azoff.

Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose has filed a countersuit against Azoff, his former manager and a music industry titan, claiming Azoff attempted to sabotage the band’s current incarnation in an effort to set up a reunion of its original members.

Azoff began legal proceedings by suing Rose for violating an oral agreement that would pay Azoff recent earnings totaling nearly $2 million.

But according to the singer, Azoff devised and implemented “a secret plan to set up Rose and the band for failure so that Rose would have no choice but to reunite with the original Guns N’ Roses’ members,”  including guitarist and Rose foe Slash, with whom he has not played since 1993.

Rose is countersuing for a minimum of $5 million.

The rocker contends that promotion for the recent Chinese Democracy album and the execution of its concert dates were deliberately bungled as part of a scheme to ruin the “new” Guns N’ Roses.

Azoff’s power across management, ticket sales, and venue operation allows him to pursue a practice of “coercing and bullying artists to do what he wants,” the countersuit alleges.

According to the filing, Azoff’s “pattern of lies and deception” continued with false promises of a stadium tour with Van Halen.

Reportedly, the singer is particularly incensed that Azoff’s suit addresses him by his birth name, William Bill Bailey, which “carries significant emotional damage from Rose’s childhood,” and that Azoff knows it.

When Gossip Cop reached out to Azoff for comment, he snarkily responded through a spokesperson, “On advice of counsel I cannot respond at this time, but will discuss in my upcoming book, My Life with William Bill Bailey.”

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