Kid Rock has explained his grudge against Tommy Lee has been going on for five years before it came to a head at the MTV Video Music Awards at the weekend.

Speaking on Los Angeles radio station KROQ-FM on Thursday, Kid said: “It’s been going on for five years,”

“Last contact I had with him was when me and [Pamela Anderson] were going through our divorce. He picked up her Blackberry and started e-mailing me a lot of horrendous things. It was extremely disrespectful.”

“[The fight] was unavoidable. I had to do what I had to do because this was a long time coming. You know, I came back from the bathroom and he was sitting right there. It was even more disrespectful after everything he’s said, I was like that’s enough, that’s it.”

“I did what any man would do, any man across the country, across the world would do. It kills me just to be associated with, to have my name in a sentence with him, it honestly destroys me.”

He added that contrary to popular belief, the fight wasn’t over Pamela: “It had absolutely zero to do with her… I knew it was a bad career move to get involved with her because your life becomes a circus – because that’s what she wants is media attention.”

“The best thing I ever did was I filed for that divorce. You have to go through these things to realize that, you know. I was in love with her. I went through it, I did what I had to do, but thank God I got out of it.”