With the pressures of fame and fortune, some celebrities do go off the rails a bit when it all becomes a bit too much.
Some did it pretty publicly, while others tried to conceal it as much as they could. We’ve brought together a few celebs who you might not know did have pretty hard-hitting addictions back in the day…
Angelina Jolie
It’s almost impossible to think that Angelina Jolie, one half of Hollywood’s most glamorous couple and a internationally acclaimed humanitarian used to be in the grip of severe heroin addiction.
Despite being quite open about her drug addiction in her earlier days, a video emerged last year showing the sheer scale of her addiction, which sent shockwaves among her fans.
The Oscar-winning actress went through some pretty dark times in the 90’s and this 16-minute video leaked by the National Enquirer showed a young Angelina pretty high on heroin.
Fortunately, she managed to get through these horrible days and is doing some great work both on and off the screen.
Robert Downey Jr
Coke, heroin, crack- you name it, Robert Downey Jr. probably did it back in the 80’s and 90’s leading up to his infamous prison time in 1999/2000.
Hollywood’s bad boy actor detailed his plight in Rolling Stone interview back in 2010, talking about his two-day party bender which saw him getting busted for drugs and guns possession. Even when he returned from jail he started searching for ‘that great coke’ he knew he’d stashed somewhere in the house.
But after his brush with the law, he’s managed to get clean and make a massive recovery starring in some box office smashes including the likes of Iron Man and Tropic Thunder.
Samuel L. Jackson
Before he was looking as cool as fuck in Pulp Fiction or chasing down snakes on a plane, Samuel L. Jackson had an all-consuming crack addiction.
During his time as a struggling actor when he was in his 40’s, he took several different drugs.
Luckily for him though, his family got him to clean up his act and is now more addicted to golf and work. He’s gone on to take major roles in some pretty awesome movies too, so fair play to him.
Brad Pitt
Brad Pitt is considered to be one of the biggest movie stars on the planet and does normally keep himself to himself when it comes to his private life.
But in an interview with U.S. Esquire back in 2013 revealed how his extensive drug use during the 90’s turned him into a ‘drifter’.
In 2011, he told Parade magazine that he spent much of the 90’s ‘sitting on a couch, holding a joint, hiding out.’ He went on to blame his marriage with Jennifer Aniston that led to him not reaching his potential.
It wasn’t really until he met his now wife Angelina Jolie in the early noughties that he sorted his life out and is regarded as one of the Hollywood heavyweights to this very day.
Zac Efron
The once squeaky clean High School Musical star shocked fans a couple of years back, when he was admitted to rehab for an alleged cocaine addiction.
Zac Efron, now 26, had two rehab stints in order to deal with his addictions, is now in Alcoholics Anonymous and seeing a therapist and insists he has now got his life back on track.
He was pretty reluctant to go into details, but he acknowledged his drug taking to THR, adding: “I was drinking a lot, way too much. It’s never one specific thing. I mean, you’re in your 20s, single, going through life in Hollywood, you know? Everything is thrown at you.”
Daniel Radcliffe
The Harry Potter star revealed that he sometime turned up to shoot films still drunk from the night before.
Discussing his decision to give up drinking several years ago, Radcliffe revealed he turned to booze to cope with the pressures of fame and potential failure like other child stars.
In an interview with Shortlist magazine said boozing had been ‘unhealthy and damaging to my body and my social life’. He added: “I was a recluse at 20. It was pathetic – it wasn’t me. I’m a fun, polite person, and it turned me into a rude bore.”
Since 2010 he has gone completely tee total and appeared in a string of well-acclaimed movies such as The Woman in Black and Kill Your Darlings since the Harry Potter saga finished.
Lady Gaga
It’s fair to say that before she was dominating the charts with her hit singles and outlandish performances to boot, Lady Gaga had some real struggles with drugs.
As a teenager raver she apparently was a big mandy lover and in her 20’s took quite a fair bit of cocaine when she spent her days and nights partying with friends.
When she hit the big time as such, it didn’t really seem to stop. After suffering a hip injury on her Born This Way Ball tour she developed a weed addiction that left her smoking 20 marijuana cigarettes a day.
But with the help of Elton John she managed to get herself on the straight an narrow. Well, sort of. She still admits that she smokes a fair bit of weed and drinks whiskey to get the creative juices flowing, but nowhere the amount she used to.
