Eminem in a recent interview about his conversation with fellow rapper T.I. and his friendship with Elton John:
MT: So who have you learned the most from in your life? And is there anybody’s career that you look to for support and insight at this point in time?
EMINEM: [pause] Um, well, Elton John. I talk to Elton a lot. We became friends and I talk to him about things, career wise. And he had a substance abuse problem in the past. So when I first wanted to get sober, I called him and spoke to him about it because, you know, he’s somebody who’s in the business and can identify and relate to the lifestyle and how hectic things can be. He understands like the pressure and any other reasons that you wanna come up with for doing drugs, you know.
Me and him have had similar lives and stuff. So I reached out to him and told him, “Look, I’m going through a problem and I need your advice.” I also talked to T.I. a lot and, you know, we exchange advice.
MT: How’s he handling all that’s going on with him now? Going to prison for a year would be tough. Is he doing OK?
EMINEM: Well, to be honest with you, we haven’t really had an in-depth discussion about that. Just because when I was talking to him, I don’t know if the conversation was — how can I say it? — I didn’t know for sure if it was going to be monitored, when he first got into the legalities and everything, when he first got into the trouble he got in. But I would call him and just make sure that he was keeping his head up. But I really didn’t want to say anything to him about the situation he was going through at that time, just in case his calls were being monitored or anything like that. So we never really had an in-depth discussion about it, but every time I talked to him, he seemed to be taking it, I guess, as good as somebody can. For what’s happened to him, I mean he’s, um … you know he’s, uh …. Man, I’m looking for the word but I can’t even find it. He’s certainly being a man about it. He’s being a trouper.
Em also talked to VIBE about how serious his drug use got:
"It’s no secret I had a drug problem. I just don’t think my fans knew how bad it was. When I went to rehab in 2005 I went in for a sleep problem, or I guess a sleep problem is what I thought it was. But it was a drug problem and I wasn’t ready to admit it. I was taking Valium, Ambien, and Vicodin. And I was taking a lot. If I was to give you a number of Vicodin I would actually take in a day? Anywhere between 10 to 20. Valium, Ambien, the numbers got so high I don’t even know what I was taking. I barely made it through that Anger Management 3 tour [Summer 2005]. I got by on the skin of my teeth. I had a rehab doctor that was seeing me through to where I could just take enough to not get sick and be able to sleep at night. The whole idea was, Get me through the tour, through these last couple of weeks, and then I’ll check myself in.
"When I went into rehab everyone else was ready for me to go, but I wasn’t. Rehab was a really bad experience for me. Just being a celebrity and shit, I felt like a fish out of water. It was like, I don’t have a problem. Everybody else has a problem. I’m a grown man, I should be able to do what I wanna do. That’s the things that addicts go through in their mind. I stayed in rehab for probably two weeks—then I checked myself out.
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