Eminem has opened up about his struggles with addiction and fame in a new essay.
In a piece published by XXL Mag on Wednesday, the Slim Shady rapper shared his experience with addiction at the height of his fame.
“My addiction didn’t start in my early days when I was coming up. We used to drink 40s (forty-ounces of liquor) on the porch and just battle rap each other,” the 49-year-old star recalled of creating The Slim Shady LP. “My drug usage started at the beginning of that first album.
“I didn’t take anything hard until I got famous. I was experimenting. I hadn’t found a drug of choice. Back then you went on tour and people were just giving you free drugs.”
He went on to explain that while taking drugs on tour, he maintained the illusion of control over his addiction, but afterwards the veil dropped.
“I managed it for a little while. And then, it just became, I like this s**t too much and I don’t know how to stop,” he wrote. “I was able to downplay my addiction and hide it for a while until it got really bad… I was taking Vicodin, Valium, and alcohol.”
Between creating The Marshall Mathers LP in 2000 and 2004's Encore, Eminem recalled that he “kinda fell off the map a little bit and didn’t explain why I went away”.
He summarised: “I don’t know how the f**k I’m still here.”
Billboard reports that Eminem has been sober for 13 years.
