Billy Idol Reveals Which Hard Drug Helped Him Quit Another: ‘It Worked’

Billy Idol is opening up about the unlikely vice that helped him break free from heroin.

Appearing on Club Random with Bill Maher, the 70-year-old rocker admitted he turned to crack while trying to quit heroin.

“Once you’re trying to get off heroin, what do you go to? You go to something else. I started smoking crack to get off heroin,” Idol said.

Maher replied, “Did you really?” and Idol responded, “It worked, it worked.”

The revelation comes as Idol reflects on his turbulent past in the new documentary Billy Idol Should Be Dead, which chronicles his life and career. During the height of his fame in the 1980s, he struggled with heroin use and other drugs. A split from his British dancer Perri Lister during that era sent him further into a spiral, he revealed in a recent interview with The New York Times, though the two later reconciled and welcomed a son, Willem Wolfe Broad.

“I had it all, and I lit it with butane,” Idol told the Times.

He also spoke to The Associated Press in 2025 about his reckless mindset that defined those years.

“There was a point in my life when I was living like every day, like, ‘Live every day as if it’s your last.’ One day, you’re going to be right,” he said.

Idol noted that drug culture in the ‘80s felt “embraced” compared to today. He revealed to AP that he first tried acid at “12 and a half, 13” years old, adding, “Imagine if it was today. If I was doing what I was back then today, I would be dead because I would have run into fentanyl.”

The rock legend, known for hits like “White Wedding,” and “Eyes Without a Face,” said ultimately it was fatherhood that helped him shift his perspective. His daughter, Bonnie Blue Broad, whom he shares from another relationship, became a turning point.

Billy Idol Should Be Dead debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival last year. In 2025, he also released his first album in more than a decade and earned his first-ever nomination for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.