Macklemore on Post-Breakout Drug Relapse: "I Just Wanted to Escape"
The good: Macklemore and Ryan Lewis' new album, the followup to 2012's inescapable The Heist, is proceeding as planned and should be out by the end of the year.
The not-so-good: It might have come sooner, except Macklemore relapsed into a former drug habit. In a new Complex cover story, the rapper dished about how he and producer Lewis plan to follow their breakout record, which yielded such smash hits as "Thrift Shop" and "Can't Hold Us," and discussed the slide into addiction that came as his star had finally hit worldwide.
Macklemore, real name Ben Haggerty, said he began smoking marijuana and taking pills, something with which he had struggled in the past:
“I was burnt out. I was super-stressed. We weren’t sleeping—doing a show every day, zigzagging all over the country. In terms of the media I was getting put into a box that I never saw for myself. The pressure and the fame—everything. All the clichés, man—like not being able to walk around, having no privacy, and from this TV appearance to this TV appearance, and the criticism, and the lack of connection, and the lack of meetings—all of that put into one pie was just...I just wanted to escape.”
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