Billy Idol revealed on the “Club Random with Bill Maher” podcast that he turned to crack cocaine while trying to break his heroin addiction. The 70-year-old singer said, “Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else.” He added, “I started smoking crack to get off heroin.”
“It worked. It worked,” Idol laughed during the discussion.
The remarks come as Idol promotes his new documentary, Billy Idol Should Be Dead, which examines his rise to fame, struggles with addiction, and return to performing music. During the podcast, Idol also recalled a near-fatal experience involving heroin after returning to England following the success of his 1983 album Rebel Yell. He said he and friends used heroin and later lost consciousness.
“Eventually, we did pass out, and then when … other people in the room came to, I was going blue,” Idol stated. When asked why he was turning blue, Idol replied, “If you’re dying, you’re gonna start turning blue.”
Idol admitted he injected heroin only “a few times” but more often snorted it. He has spoken openly about his addiction in recent interviews. In a 2025 interview, Idol revealed drug use was widely accepted in the rock scene during his early years and that he first took acid at age 12.
“There’s a point in my life where I was very drug addicted,” he said. Reflecting on survival, Idol expressed gratitude: “I’m lucky that I’ve kept the brain I’ve got because some people went brain-dead, and some people ended up in jail forever. Or dead.” He added, “Imagine if it was today. If I was doing what I was back then today, I would be dead because I would have run into fentanyl.”
Idol rose to prominence in the 1980s with songs including Dancing With Myself, White Wedding, Rebel Yell, and Eyes Without a Face. The British singer moved to the United States in 1981 after leaving his UK band. In recent years, Idol has described a gradual process of overcoming addiction, stating, “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.”
