Yet Macklemore is deeply passionate about his independence; his song “Jimmy Iovine” (named after the influential American music producer) ends with the line, “Rather be a starving artist than succeed at getting fucked.” In 2008, following an intervention from his father, he entered rehab and has been sober (save for a slip-up documented in recent song “Starting Over”) ever since. Ben Haggerty, better known by his rap alias Macklemore, has just hit the big time.
- “I think having that information [available, and knowing that there] is a community of people with the same disease is very important to young people,” Macklemore said.
- “I don’t think you really have an idea what that’s like until you’re with your girl and you can’t go anywhere without people taking a bunch of pictures. It’s been an adjustment period, but I’m figuring ways around it. I’m wearing more hats and sunglasses out in public, ha ha.”
- Then I’m on these Zoom meetings but I’m on Instagram while I’m listening.
- We need to get people into treatment and CLEAN Cause is doing that, and I’m excited to be a part of it.
- Will he traverse the rocky path of fame, stay sober, continue to break down barriers and change the world one rap at a time?
I worked with terminal patients for decades. This is what they taught me about life
CLEAN Cause donates 50% of its net profits to help people in recovery, a cause the rapper is passionate about. The rapper, 39, revealed on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” that he relapsed when the COVID-19 pandemic kept him from attending in-person 12-step meetings. “You know, I’m a white rapper. I’m gonna get compared to other people. It is who I am.” When it comes to inevitable comparisons with white rappers past – namely Vanilla Ice and Eminem – he’s philosophical. In the realm of hip-hop, often criticised for its obsession with material wealth and rampant homophobia, charity shopping and gay marriage are highly unusual subject matters to say the least. So does Macklemore see it as his mission to change the genre from the inside – or is he just rapping about what he knows? On a mission to rediscover his musical voice, in late 2008 he started working with his now full-time producer and business partner, 25-year-old Ryan Lewis.
Macklemore reveals he’s ‘694 days clean’ after relapsing during pandemic
I couldn’t get away from the shadow that opioids had cast over my life. My relationships with friends and family were strained at best, and permanently damaged at worst. I spent most of my time in my room with the blinds drawn. The world that I once loved was going on outside without me. Macklemore is the new creative director for CLEAN Cause Sparkling Yerba Mate, a beverage company with a mission to support people in recovery. The partnership comes at a time when alcohol use is rising and overdose deaths are at an all-time high.
Factors Influencing Relapse
The Washington native initially began treatment for drug and alcohol addiction in 2008. He revealed that he suffered a relapse in 2011 and then again in 2014. In 2021, Macklemore was a guest on Dax Shepard’s Armchair Expert podcast where he first revealed he had relapsed over the pandemic. The rapper said he was losing focus on his sobriety as his 12-step meetings became virtual. “It was really painful for myself and for the people who loved me. I stopped doing the work,” he tells PEOPLE in this week’s issue of his relapse during summer 2020.
The rapper wrote candidly about his addiction on a video set to his new song “CHANT.”
Macklemore, born Ben Haggerty, entered rehab for drug and alcohol addiction in 2008, when he was 25, Rolling Stone reported. Though he sought treatment, he relapsed in 2011, and then again in 2014 following the success of his and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist, citing stress and touring burnout. In his interview with the People’s Party with Talib Kweli podcast, Macklemore praised the benefits of addiction support groups.
In January, the rapper opened up to PEOPLE about his relapse during the summer of 2020 and the progress he’s made since. After relapsing at the onset of the pandemic, Macklemore is celebrating over two years of sobriety, but his journey is ongoing. The Can’t Hold Us singer revealed what drugs did macklemore do how his addiction began when he was 14 years old and had his first shot of alcohol, which turned into 12 shots within 30 minutes. When I was about 25 years old, I was paying bills with my music, but just barely. Any sort of momentum I had locally as a musician just stopped.
Macklemore says he relapsed on drugs during the pandemic: “The disease of addiction is crazy”
Macklemore has revealed in a new interview that he relapsed on drugs during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. But Macklemore felt relieved when he discovered he was not alone in his battle with substance abuse. “I didn’t know there were a bunch of people, thousands in my city that were convening in the basements of churches and random old halls and talking about this disease that I had. I didn’t even know it was a disease at the beginning.”
I tapped out of my recovery community, and then I relapsed in July. “You know how many times I’m hit up by like, the parent of a kid who is like, ‘Yo my kid is 20 years old, he can’t stop, he got kicked out of school…what do I do?'” Macklemore, who has two daughters with wife Tricia Davis, continued. Seeing a celebrity like Macklemore opening up about his pandemic-related substance addiction breaks the ice on the issue. Hopefully, it encourages more people to voice their struggles and seek the treatment they need to begin on the path to recovery. “It was really painful for myself and for the people who loved me. I stopped doing the work,” he continued, adding that the pandemic triggered his relapse.
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