Steven Tyler hurt his family and his band during the height of his drug addiction.
The Aerosmith rocker opened up about his past battle with drug and alcohol addiction during an episode of Fox News’ OBJECTified on Sunday night (22Jul18), revealing that he cared about drugs more than anything during the late ’70s and early ’80s.
“I have an addictive personality so I found certain drugs I loved and didn’t stop to the point of hurting my children, hurting my life, hurting my family, hurting my band,” he admitted. “There was a point where I didn’t have a band and I didn’t care.”
During that time, Tyler became father to actress Liv Tyler, from his brief relationship with Bebe Buell, and daughter Mia from his marriage to Cyrinda Foxe, who he wed in 1978. The band’s popularity waned and Tyler and his bandmate Joe Perry were referred to as the “Toxic Twins” due to their drug and alcohol abuse, and both Perry and guitarist Brad Whitford left the group due to rising tensions.
Using Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as a reference, Tyler explained how bad his drug addiction got.
“I went down the worst path. I went down the rabbit hole,” Tyler explained. “I went chasing Alice.”
By 1984, both Perry and Whitford had rejoined, and Tyler completed drug rehabilitation in 1986. The 70-year-old suffered a relapse in 2009, struggling with addiction to prescription pills, but was able to get sober again.
During the interview, he also revealed that something he couldn’t let go of was sleeping with lots of women.
“I think rockstars… I felt like I had an obligation to keep that alive,” he continued. “I certainly had my way with women and women had their way with me.”
The rocker is also father to daughter Chelsea and son Taj from his marriage to Teresa Barrick, between 1988 and 2005.