Flavor Flav is reflecting on how substance abuse took over his life to the extent he was spending almost $1 million a year on drugs at the height of his addiction.
The Public Enemy founding member, who opened up about his struggles with drug addiction in his 2011 memoir Flavor Flav: The Icon The Memoir, celebrated two years of sobriety in October. During an episode of DJ Akademiks’ Off the Record podcast Flav revealed he “never really let people know exactly” how big the problem was.
“There was a time that I was spending $2,400 to $2,600 a day… for six years straight,” Flavor Flav admitted. “You do the math. That’s how much I spent on drugs.”
Flavor Flav Was His Own “Best Customer”
As he was spending almost a million dollars a year while under the grip of addiction, Flav was his own supplier.
“I ain’t gonna lie, I sold a lot. But I was my best customer,” he added. “I had a lot of money at the time too, I was just doing the wrong things with my money.”
Flavour Flav recalled that he “maintained myself very well” while at the height of his addiction and “kept it hidden too.” He explained that his faith helped him to quit using and begin his sobriety journey in 2020.
“I guess God wanted me to live. And he knows that I’m a mouthpiece to the world,” he said. “So, I feel that God let me live through that, so that way, I could teach people about the mistakes that I made. And hopefully, they won’t make them later on in life.”
Flav also had some words of advice: “Drugs are easy to get on, and they’re hard as hell to get off of.” He also urged today’s generation of rappers to be aware of how they portray drug taking in the lyrics. “Back in the days, when we used to make drug records, we used to talk about selling drugs,” he added.