NEWSAndre Agassi: I Took Crystal Meth
Oct. 28 2009, Published 12:38 p.m. ET
After Jodie Sweetin's revelations about her crystal methamphetamine relapse, tennis champion Andre Agassi has confessed that he dabbled in the drug during a career slump.
Andre, 39, reveals in his book "Open: An Autobiography" (out on Nov. 9), that he took the substance in 1997 when both his game and marriage to Brooke Shields were failing.
In the tome, being serialized by the Times of London, he describes how an assistant called Slim suggests they get high on "gack".
“As if they’re coming out of someone else’s mouth, I hear these words: You know what? F*** it. Yeah. Let’s get high," Andre writes.
“Slim dumps a small pile of powder on the coffee table. He cuts it, snorts it. He cuts it again. I snort some. I ease back on the couch and consider the Rubicon I’ve just crossed.
“There is a moment of regret, followed by vast sadness. Then comes a tidal wave of euphoria that sweeps away every negative thought in my head. I’ve never felt so alive, so hopeful — and I’ve never felt such energy.
“I’m seized by a desperate desire to clean. I go tearing around my house, cleaning it from top to bottom. I dust the furniture. I scour the tub. I make the beds.”
Although the tennis hero — who won eight grand slam titles but admits that he secretly always hated the game — was busted in a drugs test, he lied to the Association of Tennis Professionals.
Facing a three month suspension for dabbling in recreational drugs, the sports star (who's married to fellow pro Steffi Graf) wrote the organization a letter "filled with lies interwoven with bits of truth."
Want OK! each day? Sign up here!
“I say Slim, whom I’ve since fired, is a known drug user, and that he often spikes his sodas with meth — which is true. Then I come to the central lie of the letter. I say that recently I drank accidentally from one of Slim’s spiked sodas, unwittingly ingesting his drugs. I ask for understanding and leniency and hastily sign it: Sincerely.
“I feel ashamed, of course," writes the dad-of-two. "I promise myself that this lie is the end of it.”
The ATP accepted his version of events and threw the case out.
