Billy Idol revealed the unexpected substance that helped him quit heroin. During a Monday, March 2 appearance on Club Random with Bill Maher, the “White Wedding” performer spoke about how smoking crack helped him wean off the drug. Idol has previously shared that he nearly died of a heroin overdose in London in 1984.
Billy Idol revealed the surprising substance that helped him kick his heroin habit.
During a Monday, March 2 appearance on Club Random with Bill Maher, the “White Wedding” performer discussed how smoking crack helped him transition off heroin.
“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else,” said Idol, 70. He continued, “I started smoking crack to get off heroin.”
Maher asked if he “really” did that, and Idol replied, “It worked. It worked.”
In his documentary Billy Idol Should Be Dead, which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2025, the “Eyes Without a Face” artist reflected on his near‑fatal overdose in London in 1984, during the height of his success with his second album Rebel Yell.
At the time, Idol had achieved major success in the United States but returned to England as a sort of victory lap, “because I’d done it.”
“I was coming back in triumph and I nearly ruined it,” Idol said. “We 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.” Idol recalled doing more heroin with his friend while the rest of the group passed out.
“I was basically dying. I was turning blue,” he said. “So they put me in an ice‑cold bath and I remember them walking me around on the top of the building, on the roof.”
In the documentary, the Grammy‑nominated singer explains the allure of drugs during his hard‑partying days, saying it was something the rock scene “embraced” at the time.
He also revealed that he ultimately gave up heroin for good after a wild trip to Bangkok that resulted in him and a friend causing an estimated $75,000 in damages to a hotel. His son Willem, born in 1988, was a baby at the time.
Idol recalled passing out in an elevator, with the doors repeatedly opening and closing on him.
In an exclusive interview with PEOPLE in May 2024, he shared that he was “California sober.”
He said he chose “not to be a drug addict anymore” after a 1990 motorcycle accident in which he nearly lost his leg.
“I really started to think I should try and go forward and not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like that,” Idol said. “It took a long time, but gradually I did achieve some sort of discipline where I’m not really the same kind of guy I was in the ’80s. I’m not the same drug‑addicted person.”
He continued, “I mean, AA would say, ‘You’re always a drug addict.’ And that may be true, but I don’t do anything that much anymore. I got over it somehow. I was really lucky that I could get over it because a lot of people can’t.”
Idol added that he can occasionally drink without it affecting him.
“I can have a glass of wine every now and again,” he said. “I don’t have to do nothing. But at the same time, I’m not the drug addict that I was in the peak ’70s, ’80s.”
Billy Idol Should Be Dead was released on Thursday, Feb. 26.
