Peter Gatien Video Interview On ‘Limelight,’ Drugs, Michael Alig

He’s the former New York club king who was relentlessly dogged by Guiliani. Now, Limelight, a new documentary about his battle with the government, tells his side of the story. Peter Gatien talks exclusively with Uinterview.com.

How did the documentary, Limelight, come about?

Over the years, I’ve been approached, off and on, by some serious people, some not so serious, and, you know, my daughter, who’s actually become a pretty accomplished producer in her own right. She basically found the dollars, approached me and obviously, you know, she's family, and I love her to death, and I agreed to do it with her.

When your promoter Michael Alig was charged with murdering another promoter, what was your reaction?

I worked with Michael for over four and a half years. The first four years, he was actually almost drug-free, and he didn’t do drugs at the club — not because he was this terribly principled person, but because he liked acting the clown and being in command of whatever he did. At most he would do, you know at the end of the night, he would take his ecstasy and he would go home with his lover and he wouldn’t come to work the next day. Four years later, he crossed over into heroin. And I have no friends or have experienced anybody that was crossed over to heroin. So, when I heard he was on heroin, I actually [said to him], ‘I’m hearing this story,” [and he said,] ‘No, no, I just snorted a couple of times, whatever, whatever.” And then he almost disappeared. So finally, I told him, you know, you gotta go to rehab, end of story. I made arrangements for him, and he actually skipped out on it. So I met with his mother, and I remember saying to his mother — her name was Elga, and she was something else — [I said, ‘Elga, you have two choices: either he goes to rehab or [he gets] fired, but if he doesn't go, I gotta fire him. You understand, if I don't fire him, it means absolutely nothing.” She's crying, “No, you can't fire him, if you fire him, he'll hang himself, it's his whole life, whatever, whatever.” I have a thousand employees, doing nineteen nights, so as much as I like Michael in my business world and personal world… If somebody had come up to me and said, ‘Listen Peter, one of your staff killed somebody at his apartment last night, who do you think it is?”, Michael Alig would have been the 995th person on my list. He was small, he was non-violent, he didn’t carry a knife or a gun or had gotten into a fight, or whatever. But I guess, you know, he crossed over into a world, where obviously, really bad things can happen. So I was shocked, in disbelief. Michael weighs like 140 pounds soaking wet, I’ve never seen him in a fight. In fact, I’ve seen him take, sort of, abusive BS from people, and you know, just laugh it off in a sarcastic, caustic way, and get the better of the person by just being so quick on his feet.