During a recent appearance on DJ Akademiks’ “Off The Record” podcast, Flavor Flav revealed that he spent nearly $2,600 on crack for six years at the height of his drug addiction.
“I kinda maintained myself very well while I was on that s**t,” the Public Enemy rapper said. “I kinda kept it hidden, you know what I’m saying? So a lot of people didn’t really know. They were trying to figure it out, ‘Yo, is he on something?’ Because I never let people know what I was doing… I started letting people know what I was doing when I was getting tired of being like that.”
He continued: “There was a time that I was spending $2,400 to $2,600 a day for six years straight. You do the math. That’s how much I spent on drugs… I ain’t gonna lie, I sold a lot, but I was my best customer… I had a lot of money at the time too, I was just doing wrong things with my money… God wanted me to live.”
Flavor Flav noted that he previously opened up about his drug addiction in his 2011 book, Flavor Flav: The Icon The Memoir, and believed that God let him live through his struggle so that he could teach people about the mistakes he’s made and help avoid them. “Drugs [are] easy to get on and they’re hard as hell to get off of,” he added.
On Tuesday (Jan. 31), he went on Twitter to respond to backlash regarding his honesty during the interview. “Ya boy is always honest [about] who he was. My sobriety has been a journey… but I’m here [taking] accountability and [trying] to make sure y’all don’t make the same mistakes I did,” Flavor Flav wrote. “The point of my story is to share that if I can get clean, anyone can get clean… I am real proud of [myself] [for] being clean today.”
The 63-year-old celebrated his second year of sobriety on social media last October. “Today is October 19,” he said said in a video posted on his Instagram page. “And guess what? I am two years, no cigarettes. Two years, no alcohol. And you know what? I feel real good y’all, just to let you know. And I don’t care what nobody say, I look good y’all.”