I left Zoe and our marriage on August 1, 2023. When I walked out on her she punitively exclaimed, Axl Rose flew the Guns-N-Roses (GNR) touring plane to New York to move her and all her stuff back to Paris and they are now having a romantic relationship.

While we were still married, post Covid lockdown, Zoe told me a nice story how she met Axl backstage when she went to their show as a teen in 1987. She lent him her book; Siddhartha and he mailed it back to her with a personal note on the inside cover. I asked where the book is now. She said it was lost when she lent it to a friend.

Since then (circa 2021) Zoe has contacted a friend who works for Axl Rose, and Zoe told her the story. Her friend said, Axl tells everyone that story, and he’s been trying to find her ever since. Zoe told her friend it was ok to give Axl her number. One day, at a planned outing in a SoHo Cafe, Zoe and I sat with our coffees. Zoe’s phone, face up in front of me, begins to ring with the name Axl Rose on her caller ID. Zoe looked panicked, and wouldn’t pick it up, so I did. No one was there. He must’ve hung up when he heard a male’s voice.

Ultimately, after 32 years of no contact, Zoe and Axl have rekindled their friendship, and over the course of the next 2 years she has been in touch with him regularly, and they have an ongoing friendship. In that time, never did she introduce me. Never did I say hello to him on the phone. Never did I even hear her talking to him. She says, one day he came to our house, but I was working so I missed him. Another time she visited him at Electric Lady Studios in Greenwich Village and sang a song with him at the piano.

Are you an idiot?

In the aftermath, I sure do feel like one. It’s quite the Hollywood Rom-Com fairytale ending. One would also think, it’s quite the hard-to-believe coincidence that she had a friend who was Axl Rose’s personal assistant, in light of her extraordinary tale of meeting Axl as a teen years ago, and that I must be gullible or just plain dumb not to question that. You must understand, I work in film and TV. I rub shoulders with people who rub shoulders with celebrities all the time, so hearing another celebrity story was common. I have several of my own, so I did not doubt her. I was also newly clean from opiates at the time. I focused my attention on sobriety. Also, I found Zoe’s life to be charmed really, and life in general to be stranger than fiction. I just chalked it up to that.

The fascinating but deeply disturbing part is, this story never happened. Zoe never in her life met Axl Rose. I realized, Zoe stole mine and my sister’s story from our youth of how we and some friends went to the infamous 1987 GNR concert at the Ritz night club in the EVil., NYC for their Appetite for Destruction tour. My sister Maya, and my ex-girlfriend Jennifer, also saw them a few months later at the Limelight. Jennifer was photographed in a magazine with Slash on stage. Later that night, while Maya and Jennifer were being chased by bouncers backstage, they locked themselves in a room to hide which turned out to be GNRs dressing room, and to their surprise all the band members where there.

Me and my sister reveled about this chapter of our glory years in Zoe’s presence, in which we touted with a badge of honor, having witnessed rock-n-roll history of GNR coming onto the scene. In high-insite, this clearly planted a seed which festered for years in Zoe’s head. Because 10 years later Zoe’s telling us the detailed story of how she as a teen, went to see GNR’s Appetite for Destruction tour, and met Axl backstage after a show. Not thinking or comparing her story to mine. I blogged about it (Meeting Axl Rose part 1).

When I left her, I supposed it was some sort of retaliation, that Zoe told me she was living with Axl in Paris. I was like, what are the odds of 2 ex’s dating Axl Rose after me? It made a good anecdote for me at the time. My ex-girlfriend LDR, who I was seeing right before Zoe, really did date Axl Rose after we broke up. Zoe was pretty jealous and insecure that I dated LDR. I’m sure this played a part in Zoe’s delusion. In the aftermath of our marriage, I learned a lot of disturbing things about Zoe.

How do you explain Axl Rose on caller ID?

Quite a number of years earlier in our marriage, Zoe told me about this app where you can make your phone ring and put a celebrity’s name on the caller ID, so people think a celebrity is calling you. I remember thinking what kind of pathetic wannabe would use an app like that. With a laugh, I dismissed it. I’m guessing she doesn’t remember telling me about the app. I trusted my wife. I didn’t think she would ever use an app like that. I had no reason to doubt her.

Like all Zoe’s stories, that call from Axl cannot be disproven and remains circumstantial. However, I told this story to my sister Maya. Maya told me that Zoe did the exact same thing to her. Maya describes, they were at a restaurant and Zoe oddly pushed her phone closer and closer to her. Zoe gave away her game. Maya saw Axl’s name on caller ID, but was smart enough not to fall for it. She ignored it. Maya was onto Zoe long before me.

The other piece to Zoe’s story is, when I met Zoe, I lived right behind the famous Electric Lady Studios. (my old address 117 Waverly Place, GV, NY 10011 – apt. 2E) I pointed out Electric Lady Studios to Zoe, through my bedroom back window, across the alley.

1. Me and my sister and friends went to see GNR in a nightclub as teens.
2. Maya and Jennifer met GNR back stage at the Limelight.
3. My ex LDR dated Axl after we broke up.
4. I lived right behind Electric Lady Studios

Zoe mixed and matched all of MY anecdotes and made her own story. Zoe tells this story with no proof other than her word. She always has a surface-level, plausible reason for discrepancies, like losing her book Siddhartha, but when I question her, she acts insulted and brings up some wrong I’ve done during my addiction to deflect attention from my suspicions, and somehow I’d be the one who was apologizing to her!? Everything is hearsay. Nothing can be disproven about her story unless Axl Rose himself came forward. At the same time she has not a shred of proof to her claims.

Part of me feels sorry for her, being so lost in fantasy. The energy spent creating this castle in the sky is baffling to me. It really is sad. Only she knows why she tells these fantastical stories. I doubt she will ever confide to anyone the truth of why, because then Zoe will have to admit she’s not perfect as she wishes everyone to believe. I question everything she’s said about herself at this point, and I’ve been finding out a lot of what she claimed wasn’t true in her larger than life stories. This is only one story of many.

I never even knew what narcissism meant until I met her. She used the word constantly. Zoe accused everyone from her mother to Eric Snowden of being a narcissist. If you spot it, you got it, as the expression goes.. I’ve educated myself on narcissistic personality disorder since. I’ve learned that, I was just a pawn in her world, used to feed her ego. Now that I’m no longer useful to her, I’ve become her scapegoat. Zoe is currently determined to ruin my life while portraying herself the poor blameless victim as she accuses me of all the things she herself is doing.

I’ve been deeply traumatized by Zoe’s narcissism and gaslighting. When I left her, she called all my friends, family and colleagues and told them horrible lies about me. I lost friends. I found myself questioning my sanity and reality in the following year. I couldn’t understand why a person needs to be so manipulative. I was pretty upset about it for a long time. I literally wept when a friend said, we don’t believe her. My closest friends carried me through that first year.

I’m still recovering from 13 years of living with a world class liar. She takes a fact, puts it out of context, and spins her own narrative. The Zoe that I knew never really existed. Her betrayal and intent to do me harm since, shrouds any good memories I have of her, thus I feel little guilt in calling her out for who she is. She is indeed the Talented Mr. Ripley.

To think, I almost threw out all my GNR shwag!

Meeting Axl Rose part III – The complete story of my life with Stephanie AKA “Zoe” Warncke, coming soon.