Pink Opens Up About Past Substance Abuse and Overdose: ‘I Was Off the Rails’

Pink has never shied away from talking about her past drug abuse. “I was extreme. I went through phases from skateboarder, to hip-hopper, to rave child, to lead singer in a band. I did it all, and all at the same time,” she once said, adding that she’d experimented with hard drugs by the time she turned 15.

But now the “Raise Your Glass” singer, 44, is going into even greater detail about her dark past with substance abuse. During a rave in 1995, soon after she turned 16, “I overdosed,” she says in a raw new interview. “I was on ecstasy, angel dust, crystal, all kinds of things. Then I was out. Done. Too much.” She wasn’t rushed to the hospital. “I remember getting up off the floor in the morning — and that was the last time I ever touched a drug again.”

It was a turning point all right. That same day, she recalls, “a DJ offered to let me sing on hip-hop night. His only caveat was that I couldn’t do drugs, so I didn’t. That’s the thing with me – once I make up my mind, I’m done.”

Weeks later, Pink signed her first record deal. But she’s the first to admit that up until then, “I was a punk. I had a mouth. I had a chip on my shoulder. Basically I grew up in a house where every day my parents were screaming at each other, throwing things. They hated each other. And I was off the rails.”

Flash-forward almost three decades, and Pink is a role model for millions of young women, many of whom may also be trying to find their way. She’s also married — to off-road truck racer Carey Hart, 48, since 2006 — and they share two kids, Willow, 12, and Jameson, 6. She says starting a family with Carey was “easily the best decision” she’s ever made. And she’s raising strong kids by making their home a safe place and by being as honest and open as possible. “I’m all about crying. Everybody should cry more,” she says. “Willow is kind of tired of my tears. She said the other day, ‘Mama, I promise to tell you more about my feelings if you promise to tell me less about yours.’”