Heidi Fleiss Can’t Lie: Recovery, Parrots and More
Heidi Fleiss, became a household name when she was arrested for running a high class prostitution ring in 1994. She’s now living in Nevada, and caring for 25 parrots. Her latest project is a reality television series for the Animal Planet Channel, “Heidi Fleiss: From Prostitution to Parrots.” She stopped by the SiriusXM studios to talk about her new show, her battles with drug addiction and of course, her parrots. Excerpts from that interview are reprinted below.
Ron Bennington: Heidi Fleiss is in studio with us, she’s got a brand new television show. It re-airs tonight, 8:00 o’clock eastern on Animal Planet. It’s Heidi Fleiss: Prostitutes to Parrot. Prostitutes are out of your life, parrots are into your life.
Heidi Fleiss: A little bit.
Ron Bennington: You’re still friends with prostitute—
Heidi Fleiss: Every woman’s a hooker.
Ron Bennington: Um…I watched the show. Your house is covered in parrots. Giant parrots. How much are these? How much does each parrot cost?
Heidi Fleiss: They range from—they’re different prices. The highest Macaw, you can get one between $10,000 and $50,000. Other Macaws, when people hybrid them – that’s when you crossbreed them to get these really bizarre colors – they cost a bit more, but they’re general sterile. Maybe 99% sterile afterwards, and then the pure breds, anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000. But, it’s not the cost of the parrot, it’s the cost of keeping the parrot.
Ron Bennington: That’s even more expensive—
Heidi Fleiss: It’s a lot of money. What I’ve learned is they’re not meant to be pets. Look, if I want a house, I can go buy a house in Beverly Hills. This house is for them. You’ll see on the show, it’s Robinson Crusoe style. It’s all ropes and twigs and branches. It’s anything they want because most of them have had such terrible, terrible lives that when I wake up every day, I tell them, “It’s your world.” I don’t clip their wings, they can do whatever they want.
Ron Bennington: And your entire house…I mean, I don’t see any furniture in there. You’re kind of wearing a smock because of the bird shit. You are in service to these parrots.
Heidi Fleiss: Two things here: First of all, right when we filmed last year, my house burned down, and during the filming – they don’t narrate this – they were still doing construction, and that’s why there’s no furniture or anything like that. My house is normal, well, it’s not normal, but there’s furniture now—
Ron Bennington: Right, it’s far from normal—
Heidi Fleiss: Right. Anything but normal. But it’s livable. There’s couches now and stuff on the walls and it looks like a normal house except there’s birds.
Ron Bennington: But the birds shit wherever they want to.
Heidi Fleiss: Of course, of course.
Ron Bennington: So, does that destroy clothes, furniture, everything?
Heidi Fleiss: Let me tell you, I’ve said this many times, if it smelled like dog shit, I wouldn’t have those birds, I think. But their poo does not smell, their shit does not smell.
Ron Bennington: Now, another part of this, I guess, plot line that runs through your life is that you’re dealing in recovery right now—
Heidi Fleiss: Yes—
Ron Bennington: So, it’s kind of addictive behavior to have all these birds as well, don’t you think? Is it almost like a transference from one thing to the next?
Heidi Fleiss: I don’t think so. These birds were thrust upon me, and the easy thing, what most people would do, is just not take on this responsibility, would just re-home them. But the problem is I fell in love with them. Well, I fell in love with one and that’s all it took. And the 20 that I have – I really have 19, but I say 20 – the 20 that I have will never go to 21, ever. But I can’t throw them away. I just cannot turn my back on them. They’re very complex, they’re very sensitive, and there’s just something so pure about them. And fragile. I just can’t throw them away. I just could not imagine my Reggie or Paulina or Paul or Lucy or any of them in any other place but where I know they’re OK.
Ron Bennington: But they keep your life kind of chaotic because, I’m noticing when you leave the house [you think] I gotta get back to the birds. I do this, I’m worried about the birds. And it kind of reminds me of what happens when you are an addict. You’re always having to hassle with something like that, you know what I mean? So I just wonder if it isn’t transference.
Heidi Fleiss: Sure, but also, during this filming, right before we started filming, I had to get rid of all my help. So, part of the plotline was hiring people. I have really good help now. So I can sit here and not be tapping and talking.
Ron Bennington: You’re OK?
Heidi Fleiss: Yeah, I’m OK. I know my birds are fine, I have proper help now. At the time of filming I had to fire all my help, the house had just burned down, the birds were a little freaked out over that, all the construction after the fire, then all the camera people in. They’re a little freaked out, so it made me a little edgy too. Like, a sense of—things weren’t normal. And also the pressure of filming, you always think you’re not doing a good job and all—whatever.
Ron Bennington: But the thing is that you were actually talking about, “I want to get high,” and stuff like that.
Heidi Fleiss: That was a lot added in. The production people kept saying to make that drug thing a reoccurring issue. I’m not saying I don’t struggle. I have struggled, I have slipped, I have a drug problem. I’m OK right now, but I have a problem.
Ron Bennington: What’s the drug problem? What was the drug?
Heidi Fleiss: I love crystal meth. Love it. And I love to sniff it. Love it.
Ron Bennington: But to me it seems like these parrots sometimes are like crystal meth flying around your house. Because when you got a meth problem you’re always, you know, needed somewhere else, you got to deal with it.
Heidi Fleiss: Yeah, you’re frantic and you have a million different things that you don’t really—nothing’s important, but it’s the most important thing on earth.
Ron Bennington: Right, so I’m wondering whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing for you that now you have these birds to worry about in the same way that you would’ve worried about copping or whatever.
Heidi Fleiss: I don’t know. I was a drug addict prior to the birds, a drug addict with the birds, and then sober with the birds. I must say that those birds really would drive someone to drugs.
Ron Bennington: Really?
Heidi Fleiss: Yeah, I have to say that it’s very trying on your nerves and sometimes I do have great odds internally with what to do with them. And I am going to move back to Los Angeles, and I am going to find a home that is okay where my birds are okay. It is feasible. People act like it’s such a difficult thing. They’re just birds.
Ron Bennington: I know, but it seems like one bird would give you the same amount of joy. It seems like you could have one, maybe two. You need twenty.
Heidi Fleiss: Probably, but I can’t get rid of them. I just can’t throw them away. And there’s some that I like more than others, but the ones that I don’t like – and I’ve re-homed a lot, and like I said, I’ll never get one more – I don’t know. Maybe if one of my birds now fell in love with another person and liked that other person, that other person wanted it, I would let them have it, if they can provide better and if it was happier, naturally. Little-by-little maybe that will happen.
Ron Bennington: Were you always an addict or was this something that came later? Where you an addict when you had the prostitutes in Beverly Hills?
Heidi Fleiss: I think it’s something where moderation turns into—you know—so, social moderation turns into something that’s a problem.
Ron Bennington: Did you go into Celebrity Rehab for the money and to be on the T.V. show, or did you go in because, I want to get a problem fixed.
Heidi Fleiss: For the money.
Ron Bennington: Were they helpful at all to you?
Heidi Fleiss: [Pause] Yeah, Dr. Drew was the best thing I ever did for myself.
Ron Bennington: Is that right?
Heidi Fleiss: Yeah, when I saw myself, I was horrified. I definitely think that Dr. Drew’s show, Celebrity Rehab, and the humiliation when I saw myself, I said, Hey, you gotta get sober.
Ron Bennington: But you’re able to live a public life. You know what I mean? I don’t think there’s any secrets left about you, right?
Heidi Fleiss: No, you could ask anything, I don’t care.
Ron Bennington: Which is interesting because addictive behavior is normally people who lie. Addicts normally lie about everything.
Heidi Fleiss: Everything. But I tell the truth even when it’s so humiliating just because I can’t do it in any other way.
Ron Bennington: Was it tough to be in there—when you did Celebrity Rehab—to have [Tom], Sizemore in with you? Did you feel like you were being taken advantage of there, or you were OK with it?
Heidi Fleiss: I didn’t really care. It was like, fine I’m making my money, I’m doing my thing, and Tom’s here. Tom and I get along great now, by the way. We talk once a week and he’s doing very well.
Ron Bennington: I talked to him not too long ago, I had him in here, and he’s kind of edgy, but sober, you know what I mean? But you can see that he’s got a lot of frantic energy, but you just also kind of hope that it all works out this time.
Heidi Fleiss: Yeah, I hope so. I tell him, “Tom just stay away from certain people and go on the right path. Go back to being a movie star.” He’s a great actor, just stick to being a movie star and you’ll be fine, stick to being a movie star. And he’s got that guy Charles, his manager. He has to have Charles like a babysitter, and when we first had a relationship he had a woman, Carol, like that. Like a babysitter—a little lesbian lady—and Carol kept him straight. As soon as Carol left he just went haywire. So if Charles, you know—they only let him have like $10 on him—you know what I mean, or he’ll fall apart. I mean, it’s horrible that he has to live with such little self-control because Tom makes it like he’s this poor white kid from Detroit. He is not. His father went to Harvard. He’s very educated. He can recite Shakespeare, and Tom downplays himself all the time.
Ron Bennington: Why do you think? Why do you think that’s important to him?
Heidi Fleiss: So you feel sorry for him, or you think like, “Oh my God he did all this out of nowhere.” He’s an actor, he always wants to be famous.
Ron Bennington: So, for a while you felt like he needed you, like he was your parrot at that time, he was your little broken-winged bird that you could take care of.
Heidi Fleiss: Actually, no, I didn’t take care of him at all, he was my nurse. He had to take care of me, I’m a girl and I’m like, “No, you pay for everything, you take care of me, I’m sick. I’m very sick. Very, very sick, Tom.” And he did a good job. We had a great relationship for a little while until he fell apart.
Ron Bennington: But did you guys fall apart at the same time? Was that when you were at your most addictive?
Heidi Fleiss: Well, I just came out of prison when we met and I was really fragile. I wanted to get
high so bad. I just had a lot of issues and things were going fine until our drug habit just, you know, drugs ruin everything.
Ron Bennington: Well, now you got parrots. It’s the new show, it’s on Animal Planet tonight at 8 o’clock. How many of these have you shot?
Heidi Fleiss: We shot just the pilot and we’ll see what happens next. I’m doing another show with the same production company on legal matchmaking. We’re going to start filming that I think in February.
Ron Bennington: One parrot. That’s what I want you to get back to. One parrot.
Heidi Fleiss: Can’t do it—
Ron Bennington: You have a favorite. I saw the show, you got a favorite.
Heidi Fleiss: Oh, Golly and Gina. The whole show I had Golly and Gina because they were the ones who weren’t camera shy.
Ron Bennington: They’re going to bite your fingers off one day. They’re going to bite your fingers off of you.
Heidi Fleiss: Then I’ll lose a finger.
Ron Bennington: Oh my God—
Heidi Fleiss: Then I’ll lose a finger—
Ron Bennington: [Pause] Uh…Animal Planet, tonight, 8:00 o’clock, Heidi Fleiss: Prostitutes to Parrots—Thanks so much for stopping in here—
Heidi Fleiss: Awesome, thank you.
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View clips and get more information about the show on animalplanet.com.
