Macklemore says he relapsed on drugs early into the COVID-19 pandemic.
The 37-year-old appeared on the Armchair Expert podcast, where he brought up host Dax Shepard’s admission last September that he had relapsed after 16 years of sobriety.
“I really, really resonated with the episode where you talked about your relapse,” Macklemore told him. “I Justin Timberlake’ed it. I cried. I maybe had a tear. We’re not exactly sure.
“But it was within two months of my COVID relapse, and the disease of addiction is crazy … It made me feel, as someone that had relapsed again, like a month or two before, that I’m not alone. It’s OK that I did this s**t again.”
Macklemore has previously been open about his battle with an addiction to opioids and painkillers. He completed a rehab program in 2008 but relapsed three years later – an experience he raps about in 2012’s “Starting Over.”
During the podcast, Macklemore said he hasn’t beaten himself up over his relapse.
“I’ve spent most of the last 11 years in recovery, and it’s made me who I am,” he explained. “I’ve compromised my life and other people around me, I’ve done things that I’m not proud of, but I do have that foundational level of 10 years of recovery, and I’m f**king proud of that.”