14 Celebs Who Got Candid About Their Cocaine Addiction

Find out what these stars had to say about drug addiction…

Jax Taylor recently revealed that he has spent decades struggling with cocaine addiction, openly admitting it for the first time during an appearance on Bravo’s Hot Mic podcast. Jax explained that he’d been “dealing with this on and off” since he was 23 but has now been sober for almost three months -- the longest period of time in his life that he’s gone without cocaine or alcohol.

“I am an addict. I have substance issues -- primarily with cocaine. It’s hard to say out loud. I’ve been dealing with this on and off since I was 23 and now I’m 45,” Jax said on the podcast. “There was times where I would stop doing it but then there were times where I’d go heavy on it.”

He continued, “I’ve never said this in my life. So to come out and say that I have an addiction [and] that I have a sickness that I have to work on the rest of my life is a really big deal for me. Obviously, it’s a huge weight lifted off my shoulders.”

Wendy Williams developed an addiction to cocaine early in her career, during her days working in radio. Despite her dependence on the drug, Wendy says she was a “functioning addict” and was able to succeed at work, making a name for herself on New York and Philadelphia radio. She dealt with the addiction for a decade before meeting her ex-husband Kevin Hunter and making the decision to stop.

“I was a functioning addict. I report to work on time, and I’d walk in and all my co-workers, including my bosses, would know but since I would have my headphones on and walk in the studio and [they] wouldn’t fire me because I was making ratings,” Wendy told Entertainment Tonight. “A functioning addict has several alarm clocks, you’re organized. It’s a miracle I was able to stop.”

Robert Downey Jr. developed a drug addiction in the late 1980s and struggled with it for years, during which he ended up spending time behind bars. In 1996, he was pulled over for speeding and ended up being arrested on charges of driving under the influence and for having heroin, cocaine, crack, and a gun in his car. After violating his parole and then missing a court-ordered drug test, he ended up being sentenced to a three-year stint at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison.

“It was just a wild era,” Rober said in the Netflix documentary Sr. “That whole world, it gets tied into creativity. We were all altering our consciousness with substances. I was just kinda playing a game of just wanting to self-soothe or just stay loaded rather than deal with the fact that things had gone off the tracks a little bit.”

Whoopi Goldberg admits that she struggled with drug addiction while living in New York and LA in the ’80s. She had previously gotten clean but said she relapsed when she began attending celebrity parties where there were copious amounts of hard drugs and no chance of getting caught.

“I was invited to parties where I was greeted at the door with a bowl of Quaaludes from which I could pick what I wanted,” Whoopi wrote in her memoir Bits and Pieces: My Mother, My Brother, and Me. “Lines of cocaine were laid across tables and bathroom counters for the taking.”

She continued using heavily for about a year before cocaine began to “kick [her] ass,” causing her to hallucinate. Her biggest wake-up call came during a stay at a fancy hotel in NYC, where she got caught doing coke in the closet of her hotel room by a housekeeper. After terrifying the housekeeper, she quit cold turkey.

Alec Baldwin went through a period in his life during which he was using cocaine every single day after moving from New York to Los Angeles. Looking back at the time period in the ’80s, Alec says cocaine “was like coffee” and everyone was doing it. Eventually, he got sober, giving up both drinking and drugs on Feb. 23, 1985.

“I had a white-hot problem every day for two years. I think I snorted a line of cocaine from here to Saturn," he shared on the Our Way with Paul Anka and Skip Bronson podcast.

Steven Tyler has had a tumultuous journey with drug addiction throughout his life and has been to rehab at least nine times. Looking back, he says he easily spent $5 million on cocaine throughout the ’70s and ’80s, a time when his band Aerosmith required venues to have an off-stage cubby where they could do coke.

“I needed blow. I needed that cocaine. I needed it,” he shared on Dateline in 2011, adding that it nearly ruined him. “It took my children away, it took my marriages away. I was on my knees.”

He continued, “There’s three things that happen to you when you’re addicted to drugs after they take hold, is death, jail and insanity. And I can’t preach that enough. The only reason I wind up in rehab is because I used to the point of falling down. My kids tell me, ‘Daddy, I don’t know who you are anymore.’ Wives leave, bands break up, and it’s really a one-way street. I still liked the ride, but it's a one-way street.”

Demi Lovato has previously opened up about struggling with drug addiction as a teenager and young adult, which ultimately led to her near-fatal drug overdose. At one point, Demi says she couldn’t go an hour without cocaine and had to sneak the drug with her whenever she was. In 2018, she relapsed after several years of sobriety. She started experimenting with drugs she’d never tried before and things quickly escalated.

“I’d never done meth before, I tried meth. I mixed it with Molly, with coke, weed, alcohol, oxycontin. And that alone should have killed me,” Demi shared in her Dancing With The Devil documentary.

Soon after, Demi overdosed during which they had three strokes that caused brain damage, a heart attack and multiple organ failure. She was even temporarily legally blind. Even after such a harrowing experience, they relapsed again -- and then checked herself into rehab for two months. She’s now been sober for years.

When Jack Black was just 14, he fell into drug addiction while dealing with the turmoil of his parent’s divorce. He ended up getting involved with the wrong crowd at school, and soon, he was addicted to cocaine. Amid his struggles, his parents enrolled him at a school for “troubled youth” in the Los Angeles area, where he got help from a non-judgmental school therapist.

“I spilled my guts, telling him I felt guilty about stealing from my mom to get money for cocaine,” he told Parade. “I cried like a baby. It was a huge release and a huge relief. I left feeling euphoric, like an enormous weight had been lifted from me. It changed me.”

Nicole Richie dealt with drug addiction as a teenager, beginning with cocaine. Reflecting on the situation, she says it stemmed from boredom and wanting to find something that would excite her. She turned to drugs and partying but eventually decided to seek treatment.

“I got so much so fast that nothing really excited me anymore. I kind of took matters into my own hands and was creating drama in a very dangerous way. I think I was just bored, and I had seen everything -- especially when you’re young, you just want more,” she shared on 20/20.

Unfortunately, after kicking her coke habit, she turned to heroin and once again had to enter rehab. She’s now been sober for many years.

Dennis Quaid dealt with an addiction to cocaine for years, explaining that growing up in the ’60s and ’70s, “there was a completely different attitude” about drug use. Looking back, he says he ended up doing cocaine on a “daily basis” and while he struggled, he realized he could still function whenever he needed to work. But amid his relationship with Meg Ryan, he had a vision of his future that caused him to turn his life around and check into rehab.

“I had what I call a white-light experience, where I saw myself either dead or losing everything that meant anything to me,” he said during an interview with Megyn Kelly.

He went on, “That was the end of the love affair for me with cocaine… I meditated for two years straight. I read the Bible. I read the Dhammapada. I read the Bhagavad Gita. I read the Quran. I just started really delving into the mystery because that’s what addiction is really about -- it’s about trying to fill up a hole inside of yourself.”

Bradley Cooper was addicted to cocaine in his 20s, before he became a major star. He says that around the time he left Alias, he also severed his Achilles tendon and fell into drug use. While struggling to find more work, he was also dealing with self-esteem issues and felt “worthless.” Looking back, he says it was his friend Will Arnett who ended up sitting him down and telling him that his actions were hurting other people -- and it changed his life.

“I was so lost, and I was addicted to cocaine,” Bradley said on Will’s SmartLess podcast. “Will took that risk of having that hard conversation with me in, like, July of 2004 and that put me on a path of deciding to change my life. It truly was Will Arnett. He is the reason.”

Josh Peck admits he became addicted to alcohol and drugs, including cocaine, as a teenager. Reflecting on the time, Josh says it started while he was struggling with weight issues. While he thought losing 125 pounds would make everything in his life better, he realized he was still dealing with the same mental health and self-esteem issues. It wasn’t until he tried drugs at a party that he “felt free” for the first time. It led him down a dark path of addiction, eventually realizing he had traded his food addiction for drugs and alcohol.

“But eventually I realized that whether my life was beyond my wildest dreams or a total mess, it didn’t change the temperature of what was going on in my mind,” he told People. “I knew that nothing in the outside world would make me feel whole.”

Josh got sober at age 21, sharing that he realized how much he was hurting his loved ones.

Tom Hanks’ son Chet struggled with addiction for many years before hitting rock bottom and deciding to change his life. While on The Surreal Life, Chet looked back on that moment, which came after a three-day coke binge in Las Vegas during which he “didn’t eat, sleep or barely drink any water.” He checked into rehab soon after and has now been sober for over two years.

“When I got to Vegas, I weighed 190 lbs. At the end of it, I weighed 163. I lost 27 lbs in three days, so my disease is gnarly. It’s not pretty. I went straight from Vegas, checked myself into rehab… again,” Chet shared on the show.

He continued, “Here I am, 31 years old, broke, strung out, sucked up, just skinny, just at rock bottom. I just knew, man, if I don’t change my life in a drastic way, either I’m not even going to be around or something bad, so bad, is going to happen that my life might as well be over.”

AJ McLean can pinpoint the exact moment his drug addiction battle began on the set of the Backstreet Boys music video for “The Call.” He tried coke during the late night shoot and then kept his growing addiction a secret from the band for over a year. He was eventually convinced to go to rehab but after the stint, he continued to use drugs on-and-off for the next two decades.

“I would go to bed when the sun was rising and I would wake up when the sun was down,” he told People. “Like they say, the definition of insanity, repeating the same mistakes over and over expecting different results…I thought drugs and alcohol would make those feelings of insecurity go away. But it doesn't work that way.”

His eventual breaking point came after his daughter noticed he reeked of alcohol and told him that he didn’t “smell like her daddy.” AJ then used his time off during the pandemic to get sober.

If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, get help. The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline (1-800-662-4357) provides 24/7, free, confidential support for people in distress.