Pink may be known for flipping through the air in high-flying concert stunts these days, but she recently opened up about surviving something much scarier as a teen.
In a vulnerable interview with 60 Minutes, the “TRUSTFALL” singer spoke about getting into drugs as a reaction to living in a volatile home as a child. “I was kicked out of the house. I dropped out of high school. I was off the rails,” she shared.
This all came to a head on Thanksgiving day in 1995, when the singer says she overdosed on a combination of “ecstasy, angel dust, crystal, all kinds of things” at a rave. “I was out, done, too much,” she said, and responded “yeah” when the interviewer asked if she almost died.
Pink has spoken about this incident in the past, including during a 2012 interview with Shape Magazine (via People) in which she said she “remember[s] getting up off the floor in the morning—and that was the last time I ever touched a drug again.”
“It was also the day a DJ offered to let me sing on hip-hop night. His only caveat was that I couldn’t do drugs, so I didn’t,” the singer elaborated to the magazine at the time. “That’s the thing with me—once I make up my mind, I’m done.”
Weeks later, she had her first record deal as the lead singer of the short-lived R&B girl group Choice. “I was told to take etiquette classes very early on… it didn’t work,” Pink jokingly told 60 Minutes of that experience. “They were trying to turn me into something I didn’t want to be.” Soon after, the artist went solo with 2000’s Can’t Take Me Home and 2001’s chart-topping Missundaztood, and the rest is history.
“I realize that the machete I’ve always carried—this metaphorical machete that made me a really difficult kid—is what makes me really good at what I do today,” she said. “It makes me a survivor.”
You can watch Pink’s 60 Minutes interview below:
