Nikki Sixx’s wife was shocked to learn of her husband’s criminal past when she read his new memoir, The First 21.

That’s the word from Sixx himself, who says his wife hadn’t heard stories from his sordid past – which includes tales of stealing guitars, committing fraud and even ripping off neighborhood kids by overcharging for candy – until she picked up a copy of his upcoming book.

“I said to my wife, ‘Hey, check out this section here,’” Sixx says. “And she goes, ‘Oh, I didn’t know my husband was a criminal.’ And I go, ‘Whoa, is that what you got out of it?’ She said, ‘Well, that’s what you wrote. You did this, you did that, you did this.’ I went back and looked at it, and it’s like, yeah, that’s what I was doing.”

Are three memoirs too many?