Megadeth’s Dave Mustaine recently that it was quite “hard” for him to fire David Ellefson more than a year ago. It came upon after sexually tinged messages and explicit video footage involving the bassist surfaced the social media. Ellefson was in Megadeth from the band’s inception in 1983 to 2002, and again from 2010 until his latest exit.

David Ellefson recently stated that a “grumpy” Dave Mustaine was upset when the bassist added an intro to the Megadeth  song “Kingmaker” after Dave initially gave Ellefson “free license” to contribute to 2013’s “Super Collider” record.

David Ellefson opens up on Dave Mustaine comments about firing him

Ellefson responded to Mustaine’s comments while appearing on the latest episode of the “2020’d” podcast. Ellefson said that he believes his dismissal from Megadeth following an online scandal involving sexually explicit text messages was the culmination of years of built-up resentment on the part of Mustaine.

“I kind of saw the events of last year as just the perfect opportunity to choose box office over brotherhood,” Ellefson said about Mustaine’s decision to fire him. “I look back at it now and I feel like I got kicked out of hell. So, whatever.” He added about the way he was treated by Mustaine in the end: “It was abusive, for sure. It was just abusive. It was unnecessary. … Dave even said he had a resentment toward me that he couldn’t let go, and I didn’t know what it was.”

In the police report that Ellefson filed in May 2021, he admitted that he had been exchanging sexual text messages with a Dutch teenager, who captured a video of several of their virtual “masturbating encounters” without his consent and shared them with friends.

Ellefson noted that the woman was 19 at the time of their first virtual sexual encounter. Ellefson, who lives in Scottsdale, first became aware of the video on May 9, 2021, when the claim “David Ellefson of Megadeth is a pedophile” appeared on Instagram. Ellefson told police he was notified on May 14, 2021 by Megadeth that the band would be parting ways with him. Three days later, he was fired.

Mustaine ended up hiring Testament’s Steve DiGiorgio to re-record Ellefson’s bass parts on Megadeth’s upcoming album, “The Sick, The Dying… And The Dead!”