At the MTV Video Music Awards last month, Kid Rock returned from a bathroom break and got a surprise. Tommy Lee, Rock's nemesis -- the ex-husband of his ex-wife Pam Anderson -- was sitting at Rock's table. "I was like, 'That's it!' " Rock recalls. "He knows how much he has disrespected me through the years, and I'd told him he had it coming. I was left with no choice." Rock remembered what his older brother taught him -- "you've got to hit first" -- in the fourth grade. "I was going to be a bitch or be a man," Rock says. "And I'm not a bitch. Never have been."

It's early morning at Kid Rock's bachelor pad in Malibu. The place is an uncluttered, Mediterranean-style oasis he bought for a cool $12 million last year. Lubed up on vodka-sodas, Rock holds court behind the large island in his state-of-the-art kitchen, telling stories that involve an unlikely cast of characters. There's the one about meeting President Bush during the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. "When I first joined a band, I just wanted to make some good tunes, get some pussy and buy a new car," he says. "But I get to go meet the president, and he slaps me a high-five while I'm having a Jim Beam and Coke with Rumsfeld!" Another story ends with Aerosmith's Steven Tyler telling him, "When I was in rehab, I used to spin in circles just to get a buzz." In between these tales, Rock riffs on the Emmy telecast playing on a flat-screen TV. When actress Jaime Pressly collects her prize, Rock smiles and says, "Been there, done that." And when sixty-two-year-old Helen Mirren appears, Rock relishes the opportunity to rip on his ex-wife: "Hey, is that Pam?"

Pretty soon, Rock, 36, is describing how he popped Lee a week earlier in Las Vegas. It was his right hand -- open-faced yet close-knuckled -- that connected with Lee's left cheekbone. "It was a full swing," he says. "I don't got big guns, but I know how to throw a punch." The drama goes way back, related to their mutual ex-wife. Rock says that the final straw came last December, after his divorce from Anderson, when he received text messages from Lee, who had hijacked Anderson's cell phone. "This motherfucker starts e-mailing me from her BlackBerry, saying, 'You're a fucking bitch, she'll always be with me, nobody wants you,' " Rock says. "It was not easy. It was a very hurtful time in my life, because I was in love with her. I wanted to roll on him right then, but I didn't see him until the MTV Awards." On his blog, after the incident, Lee called Rock a "wuss," and when reached for comment, Lee says, "My family and I want nothing to do with this unfortunate situation."

Somehow, with all of the MTV cameras around, the punch wasn't caught on tape. Still, the scuffle vaulted Rock back into the spotlight at just the right time. After four years, he has a record to promote, called Rock N Roll Jesus. Even Larry King wants a piece of Kid Rock now. "If I knew how much press this was gonna get," Rock says, "I would've come back with a left."

[Excerpt From Issue 1037 — November 1, 2007]