“As a five-year-old, I kept wondering: why does he put up with this? How does he put up with this? And why doesn’t he leave her? But he didn’t. He was able to stay calm and composed. He was able to maintain relationships with children. He’s a good man.”
He started taking pills at age 11.
Eventually, his father left the family, telling his son he couldn’t live like that anymore.
His parents separated when he was 15. Although he initially considered his father’s departure “cowardly,” he later realized his father had simply made a decision he believed was best for himself.After the divorce, his mother’s condition continued to deteriorate.
“She fell into a deep depression and attempted suicide by swallowing ‘a lot of pills.’ She survived, but she was never the same. She lived on the couch and weighed about 70 pounds.”
Unfortunately, his mother’s drug addiction also became a gateway to the young star’s career. The substance abuse he struggled with for most of his life began at a young age. He claims he started taking his mother’s “nerve pills” at age 11, started smoking at 12, and by 14, had tried “every kind of drug there was.”
His mother died in 2016. In retrospect, the actor said he is grateful for the way she raised him — but not in the way you might expect.
