{"id":513840,"date":"2026-03-04T14:01:08","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T14:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513840\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T14:01:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T14:01:08","slug":"billy-idol-says-smoking-crack-helped-him-quit-heroin-it-worked","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/513840\/","title":{"rendered":"Billy Idol says smoking crack helped him quit heroin: ‘It worked’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Idol\u00a0started smoking crack to kick his heroin addiction<\/a>, and spoiler alert, it worked.<\/p>\n

During an appearance on\u00a0\u201cClub Random with Bill Maher,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0Idol admitted that smoking crack allowed him to stop using heroin.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you\u2019re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else. I started smoking crack to get off heroin,\u201d Idol said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you really?\u201d Maher asked, and Idol replied, \u201cIt worked. It worked,\u201d with a laugh.<\/p>\n

In the new documentary, \u201cBilly Idol Should Be Dead,\u201d the 70-year-old rock legend spoke about his career and the bad boy ways that almost cost him his music career and his life.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had it all, and I lit it with butane,\u201d he told\u00a0The New York Times.<\/a><\/p>\n

While building his successful career, Idol took many risks with his life, battling an addiction to heroin while also speeding through the streets on his motorcycle, driving way too fast, saying, \u201cI\u2019m super lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an interview with\u00a0The Associated Press<\/a>\u00a0in April 2025, Idol shared that the rock and roll lifestyle \u201cembraced drugs\u201d and that he took his first hit of acid when he was 12 years old. <\/p>\n

Billy Idol performs live in concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom in Manhattan on Sept. 10, 2003. Lorenzo Ciniglio<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a point in my life where I was very drug addicted,\u201d he added, later acknowledging how lucky he is to be alive.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky that I\u2019ve kept the brain I\u2019ve got, because some people went brain-dead, and some people ended up in jail forever. Or dead,\u201d he told the outlet. \u201cImagine if it was today. If I was doing what I was back then today, I would be dead because I would have run into fentanyl.\u201d<\/p>\n

When speaking with The New York Times, Steve Stevens, Idol\u2019s longtime guitarist, explained that he \u201clearned a lot\u201d when watching the documentary, including just how bad his addiction was back then, with the documentary explaining that much of his bad behavior was hidden from the public at the time.<\/p>\n

Idol moved to the United States in 1981 to try and make it as a solo artist after parting ways with his band in the UK, Generation X. His drug use ramped up as his popularity increased. According to\u00a0People<\/a>, Idol discussed\u00a0a near-fatal overdose\u00a0he suffered in 1984 when he went back to England to celebrate the success of his second album, \u201cRebel Yell.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idol admitted that smoking crack allowed him to stop using heroin. picture alliance via Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cI was coming back in triumph and I nearly ruined it,\u201d he said in the documentary. \u201cWe flew to London, where we met a load of our pals that we knew. They had some of the strongest heroin. Everybody did a line or so and they all nodded out except for me and this mate of mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He went on to recall his friends putting him \u201cin an ice-cold bath\u201d and later helping him walk around on the roof of his building, adding, \u201cI was basically dying. I was turning blue.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Maher\u2019s podcast, Idol told a story of returning to England after the success of his 1983 album, \u201cRebel Yell,\u201d and turning blue after snorting heroin with some friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cI kind of, eventually we did pass out and then when people, other people in the room came too, I was going blue,\u201d Idol said. Maher asked why he was turning blue after doing heroine and Idol said that\u2019s what happens when you\u2019re dying.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re dying, you\u2019re gonna start turning blue,\u201d Idol said.<\/p>\n

Idol shared that he only injected heroin into his body \u201ca few times,\u201d but he preferred to snort it.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Billy Idol performing at the MTV 20th Anniversary party in New York on Aug. 1, 2001. Scott Gries\/ImageDirect<\/p>\n

In addition to his drug use, the \u201cWhite Wedding\u201d singer\u2019s wild ways on his motorcycle also cost him career opportunities. A motorcycle crash in 1990, which almost cost the singer his leg, forced him to turn down a role in \u201cThe <\/a>Terminator\u201d sequel as the role involved more running than he was capable of.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always flirted with death, in a way. Even riding motorcycles,\u00a0you\u2019re staring at the concrete,\u201d he told The Associated Press. \u201cIt\u2019s right there, you can come off that thing and get horribly messed up. And I\u2019ve done it. It\u2019s horrible. You find out how human you are, how vulnerable. There\u2019s lots of things about my life that, yeah, I did kind of call death at times. Not really mean to, but you just were living like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Idol became a parent in the late 1980s, first welcoming his son, Willem, 37, with his girlfriend, Perri Lister, in 1988, and then his daughter, Bonnie, 36, with girlfriend, Linda Mathis, in 1989.<\/p>\n

The 70-year-old rock legend spoke about his career and the bad boy ways that almost cost him his music career and his life. GC Images<\/p>\n

The motorcycle accident, combined with being a parent, led Idol to rethink his lifestyle, telling The New York Times, \u201cThere was a voice telling me, you can\u2019t do this forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI really started to think I should try and go forward and\u00a0not be a drug addict anymore\u00a0and stuff like that,\u201d he told\u00a0People<\/a>\u00a0in May 2024. \u201cIt took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some sort of discipline where I\u2019m not really the same kind of guy I was in the \u201980s. I\u2019m not the same drug-addicted person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Idol considers himself to be \u201cCalifornia sober.\u201d He told Maher that he takes \u201cpot pills\u201d sometimes, but he hasn\u2019t done a line of cocaine in 20 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cBilly Idol Should Be Dead,\u201d first premiered at the Tribeca Festival on June 10, and had its wide release on Thursday, Feb. 26.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Billy Idol\u00a0started smoking crack to kick his heroin addiction, and spoiler alert, it worked. During an appearance on\u00a0\u201cClub…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513841,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[129183,49,48,361,362,203701,41759,2971,75,50679,6790],"class_list":{"0":"post-513840","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-billy-idol","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-celebrities","12":"tag-celebrity-news","13":"tag-crack-cocaine","14":"tag-drug-abuse","15":"tag-drugs","16":"tag-entertainment","17":"tag-heroin","18":"tag-musicians"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513840","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513840"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513840\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513840"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513840"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513840"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}