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Nevada's Moonlite BunnyRanch: Sex, chaos, rock 'n' roll scandals over the years

Nevada's Moonlite BunnyRanch brothel, formerly owned by Dennis Hof, has been rocked by tragedies and headline-grabbing incidents since its 1950s opening.

The Moonlite BunnyRanch, a legal brothel in western Nevada open since the mid-1950s, rose to national fame at the turn of the century thanks to HBO's "Cathouse" reality series and several related documentaries.

It returned to the spotlight earlier this week after Tiara Tae, an employee, was accused of firing off a gun inside following a dispute with a co-worker.

She told Fox News Digital Wednesday she was wrongfully accused, although the Lyon County Sheriff's Office said that was unlikely.

Prosecutors have not returned messages seeking comment.

SEX WORKER SUSPECT IN NEVADA ‘BUNNYRANCH’ SHOOTING SAYS SHE'S WRONGFULLY ACCUSED

Over the years, the brothel, formerly owned by Dennis Hof from 1992 until his death in 2018, has seen a number of scandals, tragedies and other noteworthy events. Here are a few:

In July 2003, Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil was accused of grabbing a BunnyRanch worker named Andrea Terry by the throat and slamming her into a wall, MTV reported at the time.

He pleaded no contest, received a fine and was ordered to attend anger management.

However, the Las Vegas Sun later reported that Hof did not believe the accusations.

"In my opinion, Vince Neil did nothing wrong," Hof told the paper in 2004. "She was an opportunist."

It wasn't Neil's first run-in with the law. The rock star has a history of drunken driving offenses, including a DWI crash in 1984 that killed his passenger Nicholas Dingley, a 24-year-old drummer.

WATCH: Motley Crue members reminisce, talk about road ahead

In 2016, he was charged with a misdemeanor in Las Vegas for allegedly poking an ex-girlfriend hard enough to leave a bruise during an argument.

A shocking quadruple shooting in Oklahoma City in 2009 led to six murder charges for the suspects because two of the victims were pregnant, including former BunnyRanch worker Brooke Phillips, 22.

Hof in 2016 told the Reno Gazette he would normally oppose the death penalty but supported it for the suspects. Three men ultimately received life sentences and a fourth, who took a plea deal, got 25 years.

SEX WORKER SUSPECT IN NEVADA BROTHEL SHOOTING IDENTIFIED AS FORMER HUSTLER COVER MODEL

In 2015, Hof banned disgraced reality TV star Josh Duggar from the BunnyRanch and all six of his other establishments after allegations emerged accusing Duggar of molesting his own sisters when they were children.

"Apparently the Bunny Ranch brothel is a safer place for young girls than the Duggar household," Hof quipped in a scathing statement announcing the ban, published by The Wrap.

The former co-star of TLC's "19 Kids and Counting" was convicted of child pornography charges in Arkansas in December 2021.

Around 4 a.m. May 25, 2017, a man driving a tractor-trailer plowed through the front door, according to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office.

Deputies arrived and found the rig sticking out of the front of the building.

The driver was charged with assault with a deadly weapon and malicious destruction of property, and authorities said there were no injuries.

Hof, on Twitter, downplayed the incident: "Semi with @amazon boxed blows into @bunnyranch," he tweeted. "He had full body amor mask helmet girls fine pouring free cocktails."

Near the end of his life, Hof tried his hand at politics, running unsuccessfully as a Libertarian for the Nevada State Assembly in 2016. Two years later, he received the Republican nomination and was poised to win.

But he was found dead at his Love Ranch brothel on the morning of Oct. 16, 2018, two days after his 72nd birthday.

Hof, who had styled himself as a Donald Trump-inspired candidate, even wrote a book, "The Art of the Pimp," a play on Trump's famous "The Art of the Deal."

He died less than a month before Election Day 2018.

The ballots had already been printed, and although authorities posted signs at polling places notifying voters of his passing, he won anyway with more than 63% of the vote, according to Ballotpedia.

When he ousted an incumbent Republican lawmaker in the primary months earlier, his election night party featured the "Hollywood Madam" Heidi Fleiss.

DENNIS HOF, NEVADA BROTHEL OWNER, DEAD AT 72 

Lamar Odom, the former Los Angeles Lakers star, overdosed at another Hof-owned property, the Love Ranch. A pair of sex workers found him unconscious and foaming at the mouth.

In a Fox special, "TMZ Presents: Lamar Odom: Sex, Drugs and Kardashians," he said he didn't remember what happened before he woke up in a hospital bed three days after overdosing.

He claimed he only had one drink and accused Hof of trying to "kill" him.

"I went there," he said. "I didn’t do drugs that night. I wound up with drugs in my system."

Tae, whose real name is Savannah Henderson, faces four counts of possession of a firearm by a convicted felon, drug possession, discharging a firearm where others may be endangered and obstructing a peace officer, according to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office.

No one was hurt in the shooting, according to the Lyon County Sheriff's Office, but deputies responding to a report of a fight between two workers at the brothel Monday evening heard more gunshots when they arrived.

The March 2019 cover model for Hustler magazine told Fox News Digital Wednesday she's innocent. She posted her own $86,000 bail and is back to work.

Fox News' Mariah Haas and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Photography by Christophe Tomatis
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