14 DAY TRIAL // It’s no secret that the main reason behind Eminem’s self-imposed retirement of a few years ago was a severe addiction to pills and other illegal substances, as the rapper himself stated on more than one occasion. He later got to face his demons in rehab, he also said, but he probably couldn’t have done it without the help of Sir Elton John, the legendary singer reveals in a new interview, as cited by the Daily Mail.
Elton John is known to stage interventions with other celebrities battling addiction and, this way, make them understand they need professional help. Among the stars he tried to help is the late Michael Jackson and George Michael, the latter publicly rebuffing him in a recent interview for his attempts at making him see he needed rehab. Eminem was also on Elton John’s do-good list, he now reveals.
“I’ve been helping Eminem over the last 18 months and he’s doing brilliantly. I’m there if people want my help. If people ask for help you tell them where to go but there’s no point advising people if they don’t want to do it,” Elton told Danny Baker on Radio 5, as cited by the Mail. Judging by how severe Eminem’s addiction seems to have been, an intervention like that of Elton’s was just the thing he needed, one might say.
“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 started looking around my house to see if I had a stash box of Vicodin. I’m ransacking my house, finally find something in the basement, in a little napkin, seven and a half Vicodin – the big extra-strength ones – and a few Valium. It never once hit me that drug addiction runs in my family. Now that I understand that I’m an addict, I definitely have compassion for my mother. I get it,” Eminem was saying in an older interview, as we also reported at the time.
George Michael, on the other hand, seems to think that all Elton John and his partner are doing is interfere where they shouldn’t, by assuming that, in his case too, they’re dealing with addiction. He might smoke a few joints a day, but he doesn’t have a problem that needs rehab, the singer was saying a few weeks ago, which is why Elton would better mind his own life than get mixed in problems that do not concern him.