HEALTH'I Wanted to Die': Kid Cudi Recalls 'Dark' Days of Cocaine Addiction and Suicidal Thoughts in Shocking Interview
Kid Cudi opened up about cocaine addiction and suicidal thoughts in a new podcast interview.
Aug. 13 2025, Published 2:24 p.m. ET
Kid Cudi is opening up about one of the darkest chapters of his life.
The 41-year-old rapper reflected on his cocaine addiction and near-suicidal thoughts during his August 13 appearance on the “Call Her Daddy” podcast.
“The feeling I got was nothing I had ever felt before. It was f------ magical,” he began, explaining that he felt “100 percent happiness” the very first time he tried cocaine.
“I will say this, that’s the only time it felt like that,” Cudi continued. “All the other times after, I was just chasing that first high and it was never getting there. It never felt like that first time ever again.”
Kid Cudi talked about his battle with cocaine addiction.
The “Better Place” artist revealed that he kept his addiction a “secret” because he “didn’t want it to be a known thing that I did coke around [the] industry.”
“That would have spread fast. So, I just kept it to myself,” he said. “Doesn’t mean people couldn’t tell I was on it. People could probably figure it out.”
His drug use only worsened as he battled mental health struggles and suicidal thoughts. Cudi admitted he “wanted to die” while making his 2015 album, Speedin' Bullet 2 Heaven.
“I just wanted an excuse to scream on records and express that anger,” he shared, adding that the project was intended as a “goodbye.”
“When I was around my friends, I was happy to not be alone,” he said. “I could keep it to myself. I never wanted to worry my friends.”
The rapper admitted his first high felt 'magical.'
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Despite trying to stay sober, he kept relapsing.
“From 2015 to 2016, it was the decline getting just darker and darker and darker. Suicide was on my mind all the time. Like, I would daydream about this s---,” he said. “When I relapsed, I was faced with this reality, like, ‘D---, it’s been six years since I’ve used this s--- and I thought I was past that, and I’m obviously not.’”
In his book Cudi: The Memoir, which was released on August 12, the star shared more about his downward spiral.
“I was at peace with dying. After doing more coke than I ever had in my life, I was losing all sense of what was real. I’d been alone in my New York apartment, crying for hours, listening to the Lykke Li song ‘Time Flies’ on repeat. It was a love song, but the melodies and her voice filled me with despair,” he wrote, per GQ.
The 'Better Place' singer kept his drug use a secret from the industry.
He wrote, “I tried to get up off the bed, but my legs wouldn’t work, so I collapsed to the floor and started to crawl. Eventually, I gave in and just laid on the ground. My heart was racing. It felt like it was going to burst any minute.”
Kid Cudi said suicidal thoughts consumed him between 2015 and 2016.
Luckily, Cudi came out on the other side, revealing his mental health has been “a thousand times better” since 2016.
“I was a hothead for a long time, a long time, and that was my main issue,” he explained on the podcast, adding that therapy helped him unpack his “anger” during treatment.
“That was secretly weighing me down, holding me back. In my core, what I realized is that, ‘Scott, you’re a good dude,’” he added.
