Billy Idol says the closest he came to death was during a night of heavy drug use in the early ‘80s.
During a recent appearance on comedian Bill Maher’s podcast, Club Random, Idol recalled the scary incident.
“I went back to England in triumph with the album Rebel Yell,” he remembered, reflecting upon the success of his 1983 LP. “I was going to do it on Top of the Pops in England. You know, kind of returning to England. I’ve had this big record in America.”
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“So a load of friends of us met us at the airport, and they had a bunch of heroin on them,” the singer continued, alluding that the group quickly found a hotel room to partake in the illicit drugs. “So, of course, somehow everybody else in the room passed out, except for me and the other guy, you know, who was chopping the lines out.”
As Idol explained, he preferred to snort heroin rather than shooting up via a needle — a proclivity he attributed to his mother having been a nurse.
Eventually, Idol was the final member of his group to pass out from heroin use. “When people, other people in the room came to, I was going blue.”
The rocker was unconscious and, in retrospect, likely close to death. “If you’re dying, you’re going to start turning blue,” he explained to Maher. Thankfully, Idol’s friends were able to revive him by running water on him in a bath. “I survived,” he flatly noted.
‘I Started Smoking Crack to Get Off Heroin’
Idol, who said he is “California sober” these days, eventually quit heroin, but it wasn’t easy. He described it as feeling “like a skeleton is trying to get out of your body” when you come off the drug.
“[Heroin] is really great. It’s just the worst thing is getting off it,” the singer remarked. “It’s just getting off it. It’s terrible. And that’s what stops me going back to doing it, is the thought of getting off. It’s so terrible.”
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Heroin wasn’t the only drug Idol used. In fact, the rocker credited a different narcotic with helping him kick his heroin habit.
“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else,” he explained. “I started smoking crack to get off heroin… It worked.”
“It was a lot of fun,” Idol confessed, looking back on his partying days. “I liked taking drugs back then, I’d really, I enjoyed it. It took me a long time to put them in the rear view mirror, but at some point I realized you had to do that.”
Idol is a nominee for the 2026 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame class. He also has a new documentary film, appropriately titled Billy Idol Should Be Dead.
Rockers Who Defied Death
Some of music’s biggest names have come dangerously close to meeting their maker.
Gallery Credit: Corey Irwin
