Billy Idol opens up about critical heroin overdose

Billy Idol has addressed a near-death experience in his new documentary.

The punk rocker, 69, was enjoying the success of his second album Rebel Yell in 1984 when his overdose led to a near-fatal experience in London.

The documentary Billy Idol Should Be Dead, which premiered at Tribeca Festival on June 10, is set in his late 20s when he decided to return to England as a victory lap for the major success in the United States.

“I was coming back in triumph and I nearly ruined it. We flew to London where we met a load of our pals that we knew. They had some of the strongest heroin. Everybody did a line or so and they all nodded out except for me and this mate of mine,” he said in the documentary.

Idol remembers not stopping with the intake and the events that unfolded after that. 

“I was basically dying. I was turning blue,” he recalled. “So they put me in an ice cold bath and I remember them walking me around on the top of the building, on the roof.”

“A number of people were on it. But you know, you’re wide open for it. A lot of the people we loved were all heroin addicts,” he said. “Lou Reed wrote the song Heroin. You weren’t thinking how dangerous it was. In fact, you’re thinking quite the opposite. Maybe this could unleash something.”

Elsewhere in the documentary, Idol recalled another episode that took place in Bangkok--eventually making him quit heroin as he and a friend caused an estimated $75,000 in damages to a hotel. At one point, Idol recalled passing out in an elevator, with the elevator doors opening and closing on him.

“Mel Gibson was there with his family on holiday, horrified,” he said. On that same trip, he had picked up a large log and thrown it through a glass window, which then involved the police.

“The silver lining was I did put heroin behind me. It was too horrible, the whole experience. It actually really put me off,” he shared. “Getting off heroin is one of the most awfulest experiences in the world. Boy George said it right when he said it’s like your skeleton trying to get out of your body. There’s no quick fix. It’s such a long time. You’re just counting the days, the seconds, the hours. Even after six months, you still feel lousy.”

The Bangkok trip took place when his son Willem, who was born in 1988, was a baby.