It has been nearly 28 years since Pink suffered a near-fatal drug overdose at 16 and more than a decade since she last spoke in detail about the pivotal moment. During a recent appearance on 60 Minutes, the singer and songwriter reflected on the November 1995 incident, which occurred a few weeks before she signed her first record deal.
“Thanksgiving of 1995, I was at a rave, and I overdosed. I was on, oh boy — ecstasy, angel dust, crystal, all kinds of things,” she explained. “Then I was out. Done. Too much.” When Pink first detailed the overdose in 2012, in an interview with Shape, she explained that “it wasn’t to the point of going to the hospital, but I remember getting up off the floor in the morning — and that was the last time I ever touched a drug again.”
Pink began using drugs at a young age, having come from a punk background informed by a tumultuous home life. “I was a punk, and I had a mouth. I had a chip on my shoulder,” the singer explained of why parents were often reluctant to allow her around other children her age. “Basically, I grew up in a house where every day, my parents were screaming at each other, throwing things, hated each other. And then I got into drugs. I was selling drugs. And then I was kicked out of the house. I dropped out of high school. I was off the rails.”
In the days following the overdose, she recalled in 2012, a DJ offered her a performance slot during a hip-hop night. “His only caveat was that I couldn’t do drugs, so I didn’t,” she said at the time. “That’s the thing with me – once I make up my mind, I’m done.” Shortly after, Pink signed a deal with LaFace Records as a member of the short-lived R&B girl group Choice before launching her solo career in 2000.
Despite being far removed from that scene now, as a 44-year-old mother of two, Pink still carries the weight of the tragedies she encountered during that time. Earlier this year, she released her ninth studio album, Trustfall, which she has taken on the road with the Summer Carnival tour. Each night, after running through “Get the Party Started” and “Raise Your Glass,” she performs “Who Knew,” a song written after the singer lost two friends to drug overdoses.
“I lost several friends, unfortunately, to overdose, and the second one was very, very, very close to me, and I loved him very much,” Pink explained on the Kelly Clarkson Show earlier this year. Her friend, Sekou Harris, died of a heroin overdose when they were 14 years old.
“But the thing that I love about the song now, after all these years, is that I never get tired of performing it, and it’s taken on so many different meanings over the years. It was about my grandmother at one point. It was about my dog,” continued the Grammy winner. “I’ve lost people, so it’s always sort of fresh in my heart.”
From Rolling Stone US
