Billy Idol Reveals How Crack Helped Him Quit Heroin

Billy Idol has never pretended his rock-and-roll past was clean. 

However, during a recent unfiltered conversation, the punk icon dropped a confession that stunned even longtime fans. 

In a chat with Bill Maher, Idol admitted that when he tried to quit heroin, he turned to another dangerous drug to get through it. 

Now 70, Idol is reflecting on the chaos, near-death moments, and hard-earned discipline that pulled him out of the darkest years of his life.

Appearing on “Club Random with Bill Maher” on March 2, Billy Idol spoke candidly about the desperate measures he once took to break his heroin addiction. 

Rather than easing off in a traditional way, he pivoted to something else entirely.

“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else,” Idol explained. 

Then came the bombshell. “I started smoking crack to get off heroin,” the icon revealed.

Maher pressed him, asking if he truly meant that the approach worked. Idol didn’t hesitate. 

“It worked. It worked,” he said while laughing heartily. 

Although Idol admitted crack helped him get off heroin, he explained that he felt the most terrible during that period. 

The interview garnered a ton of reactions from fans, albeit for the wrong reasons. 

Rather than focus on Idol’s story and progress, fans turned their attention to the host, slamming him for constantly interrupting Billy Idol.

“I’m a huge Billy Idol fan, and I already know this is going to piss me off because Bill Maher never shuts up,” one fan wrote. 

Another commented, “He just won’t let people talk. Just show about the Beatles or Billy Idol. I want to hear Billy’s perspective. Billy Idol, not Billy Boy.”

A third fan with similar sentiments added, “I really believe Bill is a small man that wants to impact his knowledge and doesn’t let the other person speak and always argues their points. This show is all about Bill, not the guest.”

Another fan described the interview as a “train wreck,” noting that Idol looked irritated about Maher’s continuous interjections.

This is not the first time Billy Idol has shared details about his past addiction to drugs. 

He also revisited his darkest moments in the documentary, “Billy Idol Should Be Dead,” which premiered at the Tribeca Festival in June 2025. 

In the film, he recounts a terrifying overdose in London in 1984 at the height of his “Rebel Yell” success.

Fresh off major momentum in the United States, he returned to England feeling victorious. “I was coming back in triumph, and I nearly ruined it,” he said.

Once reunited with friends, the celebration took a dangerous turn. The group got their hands on what Idol described as incredibly potent heroin. 

While most of the people around him quickly lost consciousness, Idol kept going.

“I was basically dying. I was turning blue,” he recalled, per PEOPLE. 

Friends tried to revive him by plunging him into an ice bath and walking him around on a rooftop to keep him conscious. 

The moment could have ended his career and his life just as it was exploding globally.

The documentary also details a reckless trip to Bangkok that became another turning point. 

Idol and a friend reportedly caused an estimated $75,000 damage to a hotel during the wild getaway. Around that time, his son Willem, born in 1988, was still a baby.

He also remembered falling unconscious inside an elevator, with the doors repeatedly opening and closing on him. 

Eventually, he made the decision to give up heroin for good, though the path forward was far from immediate or easy.

“There’s no quick fix. It’s such a long time. You’re just counting the days, the seconds, the hours. Even after six months, you still feel lousy,” Idol noted.

In a May 2024 interview with PEOPLE, Billy Idol described himself as “California sober,” explaining that he no longer lived the way he did in his peak years.

He said he chose not to be a drug addict anymore after a devastating 1990 motorcycle accident in which he nearly lost his leg. 

That brush with permanent damage forced him to reevaluate everything. 

“I really started to think I should try and go forward and not be a drug addict anymore and stuff like that,” Idol shared. 

Over time, he built discipline and distance from the person he once was. “I’m not the same drug addicted person,” he said, reflecting on the shift.

While acknowledging that some recovery programs believe addiction never fully disappears, Idol admitted, “I got over it somehow. I was really lucky that I could get over it because a lot of people can’t.”

Today, he says moderation is possible. “I can have a glass of wine every now and again,” he noted, emphasizing that he’s no longer the reckless figure of the ‘70s and ‘80s.