Flavor Flav is opening up about his struggles with drug dependancy and unveiled the financial toll of his dependency.
Throughout a current interview on the podcast “Off the History With DJ Akademiks,” the 63-yr-old rapper and truth Tv set star shared that he was addicted to cocaine, crack, weed, alcoholic beverages, and cigarettes “for 18 yrs straight.”
He also obtained candid about the value of his routines.
“There was a time that I was expending $2,400 to $2,600 a day for six years straight, you do the math,” Flavor Flav mentioned. “That’s how considerably I put in on medication.”
Which is virtually $5.5 million just all through the peak of his addiction, with thousands and thousands far more spanning practically two decades.
He also admitted that he was selling drugs, but broke the selection a person rule for dealing by tapping in to his personal provide.
“I ain’t gonna lie, I sold a great deal. But I was my finest consumer,” Taste Flav explained. “I had a great deal of revenue at the time far too, I was just executing the mistaken items with my revenue.”
The former Community Enemy buzz guy, whose true identify is William Jonathan Drayton, Jr., explained he can ultimately chat openly about those struggles because he is been clean up from cocaine and crack for 15 yrs and celebrated two several years of alcohol sobriety in October 2022.
Flav’s sobriety journey was sparked by an Oct. 4, 2020 arrest stemming from a scuffle with his girlfriend at residence in suburban Las Vegas. The rapper was charged with misdemeanor domestic battery. He pleaded no contest in the situation and the cost was dismissed a year later on.
The father of 8 said he is blessed to have survived dependancy, noting that “medicine are effortless to get on, and they’re tough as hell to get off of.”
“I guess God needed me to are living. And he knows that I’m a mouthpiece to the globe,” he explained. “So, I feel that God permit me dwell by means of that, so that way, I could train men and women about the issues that I produced. And hopefully, they will not likely make them later on on in life.”
The “Favor of Enjoy” star claimed hip-hop artists have a position in not glorifying drug use and as opposed rap songs created during his heyday, which were being about offering medicines, to present day artists who make tunes about doing medicine.
“It’s giving young little ones the wrong notion,” Flavor Flav additional.
Flavor Flav was a founding member of the group Public Enemy and regarded for donning a large clock on a chain all-around his neck. He was inducted with Community Enemy into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2013. In March 2020, the group kicked him out of Community Enemy adhering to a dispute more than a decision by users of the rap pioneers to complete at a Bernie Sanders campaign celebration, according to The Connected Push experiences.
The former rapper has a legal historical past which includes arrests and convictions on visitors infractions, a month in jail more than assaulting his then-girlfriend in 1991, and a few months powering bars for capturing at a neighbor in New York in 1993.
He was arrested in October 2012 in Las Vegas right after he was accused of wielding knives and threatening his then-fiancee’s 17-yr-outdated son at their residence.
That felony situation was shut after he pleaded guilty in 2014 to lowered expenses of misdemeanor attempted battery, served probation and concluded a domestic violence counseling class.
If you or anyone you know is struggling with drug habit, contact the national hotline for drug abuse at 1-888-633-3239 to obtain details concerning remedy and restoration.