Robin Thicke is reflecting on getting lost in the midst of drug and alcohol abuse.
In conversation with Dax Shepard and Monica Padman at Armchair specialist podcast, the singer talked about taking opioids and drinking during his “Blurred Lines” era, but then returning to old habits in recent years while trying to deal with many losses – from father Alan Thicke, mentor Andre Harrell and his home, which burned down in California’s forest fires. “I got lost,” he admitted, but added, “I finally woke up.”
“I just went through my darkest days”, the Masked singer judge, 44, admitted. “My father, my home, my mentor, my addictions – everything hit the wall at the same time. I don’t want to be that person ever again.”
His struggles amid the success of “Blurred Lines” in 2013 were well documented, both during his divorce from Paula Patton and in his copyright infringement process with the estate of Marvin Gaye. During a testimony for the latter, he said that using the opioid pain reliever Vicodin mixed with alcohol left him in a haze for an entire year.
“It wasn’t until I was 30” that addiction problems surfaced, he said. Before, “I had good control over my faculties. I was kind of like a beer and a glass of wine. It wasn’t until the tours and parties and the lifestyle. You just think you can manage everything. Do you think you can continue at that pace. And then your habits will follow you. “
Shepard, who recently relapsed on pills, said, “Opiates have the illusion of being controllable, don’t they?”
“Yes,” replied Thicke. “And the illusion of normality. Some form of normality. You don’t have to hide in the bathroom. You’re not falling or rolling your words. It’s not in your breath. You can’t necessarily see it in your eyes.”
Thicke said he did not want to be “reckless” in his report on drug abuse – or on his schedule.
“The ‘Blurred Lines’ thing was a pill thing. That was pills, drink, my back hurt,” he said. “It started with long trips, back pain and then it became a bad habit.”
The second wave was “once all that crazy ‘blurry lines’ stopped and I moved to Malibu [in 2015]. I had a very good honeymoon [period] with april [Love Geary] for a while, “referring to his now fiancee, with whom he started dating in 2014, after separating from Patton.” Then the honeymoon decreased and alcohol consumption increased. “
He was aggravated by the sudden death of his father, Growing Pains, from a heart attack in 2016, which was followed by more turmoil: the death of his manager, Jordan Feldstein, in 2017, and then the loss of his home, which caught fire in 2018. Professionally he was struggling, feeling as if was “out of the world of music” and, in addition, won 50 pounds.
In that period, “I got lost”, he admitted. “I was making music that didn’t come from my heart anymore. That’s when I kind of got lost for a while.”
It was when he suffered even more losses – the death of his mentor, Harrell record executive, last May, during COVID’s early months – that things came to a head.
“Everything was very clear,” he said of facing his problems. “I was working. I haven’t been stoned all day. It was more like this: take care of the children and when they sleep I will drink until I sleep. But then you get sulky in the morning. you are arguing with your lady. You don’t remember what you said. So you’re like: This is not a life for a family and I can’t be the father I want to be like. “
The father of four added, “I have to change my life.”
From all that era, from “Blurred lines” until last year, “Knowing what I know now, I could have handled everything better. It just so happened that I had a child inside me who needed unrealistic things. I had unrealistic desires – and so they became more selfish. The more successful I became, the more selfish my desires became. “
Thicke, whose new album On earth and in the sky left last month, continued: “With a little bit of therapy and some self-realization and just a little bit of reality hitting you in the face, I finally woke up and now I can be myself, love myself.”
He said he now focuses on “balance”, a mantra he adopted from his father. It is about getting enough rest, being present for your children, being present at work. Before, he realized “‘You are getting in the way.’ I’ve been on my way for a long time. “
During the conversation, Thicke also mentioned his contentious divorce from Patton, with whom he has been for 21 years, from the ages of 15 and 16. They have a 10-year-old son and have participated in co-parent couples therapy after they split up and battle. custody.
“Because we were both in the business, we changed,” he said. “Business changes your perspective, your desires, the way you think about yourself. It just changes things. [We] had so much love and positivity – the quintessential Hollywood romance: I helped [the Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol actress] with her lines before the auditions, she helped me with my choruses when I got stuck. We live the dream – so it didn’t work anymore. “
Of Geary, with whom he shares three young children, he said: “What’s great is that I was lucky enough to find someone in April who wouldn’t care less about these things. She likes my dad in me … She likes mine sense of humor and what a father I am. She wouldn’t mind if I got on stage again. “
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