Revisit some of the best stories of getting high with Willie Nelson
For all of the canonised kings and queens of smoking marijuana throughout pop culture, all celebrities stand in the shadow of country music legend Willie Nelson. The original elder statesman of herb, the maestro of Mary Jane, and the patron saint of pot, Nelson has held many other titles as well: cannabis entrepreneur, legalisation advocate, and occasional convict. The man who sang ‘Roll Me Up and Smoke Me When I Die’ is synonymous with the drug, and as he approaches his ninth decade, no household name has as much history with weed as Willie does.
Nelson recounts in his 2015 autobiography It’s a Long Story that fellow musician Fred Lockwood passed Nelson his first joint in 1954. The young singer was only 21 and didn’t actually get high the first few times, but it didn’t take long for Nelson to become a devotee of the green stuff.
Over the next 70-odd years, Nelson’s public image has become inextricably linked with reefer. Although it often gets played for laughs, Nelson sees his consumption of cannabis as having helped him stay healthy for now close to nine decades. It helped him get over his alcoholism, and when one of his lungs collapsed in 1981, he was faced with either giving up tobacco or marijuana. Nelson chose to stick with pot, and he continues to tour, record, and advocate to this day.
For a good number of celebrities, smoking with Nelson has become a right of passage. But inexperienced tokers beware: Nelson has 68 years of experience, meaning that whatever still gets him high has to be particularly potent. More than a few eager stoners have welcomed into his presence, only to be knocked on their asses once smoke starts to fill the room. Unsurprisingly, this has led to a number of hilarious stories from all across the world of entertainment.
Here are some of the best stories of celebrities chronicling the chronic with Willie Nelson:
Jimmy Carter
One of Nelson’s most infamous escapades famously involved smoking weed on the roof of the White House, which he did during Jimmy Carter’s presidency between 1977 and 1981. Nelson says in his autobiography that he did the deep with a White House employee, but President Carter later revealed that it was actually his son and Nelson was simply trying to protect the Carter family.
“When Willie Nelson wrote his autobiography, he confessed that he smoked pot in the White House one night when he was spending the night with me,” Carter told People. “And he says that his companion that shared the pot with him was one of the servants in the White House. That is not exactly true — it actually was one of my sons, which he didn’t want to categorize as a pot-smoker like him.”
Jack Johnson
When you don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, make sure you don’t smoke with Willie Nelson. That’s a lesson singer Jack Johnson had to learn the hard way when he spent a night playing poker and smoking with Nelson. Before the night was through, Johnson had lost all of his money and quite a bit of his pride thanks to Nelson’s weed.
Before performing at Farm Aid 2015, Johnson decided to chronicle the experience with a new song: ‘Willie Got Me Stoned and Stole All of My Money’. While the song was a comedic dig at Nelson’s unmatched abilities when it came to THC, it was also a loving ode to a generous man who would still run you under the table if you didn’t have your wits about you. Johnson has continued to perform the song, making it a Farm Aid tradition.
Toby Keith
American country star Toby Keith is probably better known for his odes to beer than for partaking in “higher” activities, but just like Johnson, Keith had such an out-of-body experience while smoking with Nelson that he had to turn it into a song. Just before Charles Barkley’s birthday party in Las Vegas, Keith played a few songs with Nelson at one of his concerts, and Nelson passed some heavy grass over to Keith.
“I couldn’t even function. It was like the most hardcore weed that I ever smoked,” Keith recalled. “I hit it like three or four times, and unlike Bill Clinton, I did inhale. I stood up and said, ‘It’s time for me to go’… and he was sitting there grinning at me. He knew he got me.” Keith missed Barkley’s party, crashed at 11:30 PM, and vowed to never toke with Nelson ever again, which led to his song ‘Weed With Willie’.
Chelsea Handler
Sometimes the best stories come from the celebrities whose job is to relate funny stories. Comedian Chelsea Handler is no stranger to cracking jokes about being under the influence, but like everyone who comes face to face with him, Willie Nelson proved to be an entirely different force of nature.
“I was high for two days. I literally couldn’t open one of my eyes,” Handler recalled of her smoke session with Nelson. Handler was supposed to be interviewing Nelson for her Netlflix series Chelsea Does, but as the weed kicked in, her mind went blank. “I didn’t take into account that I was going to be completely disabled,” Handler joked.
Owen Wilson and Johnny Knoxville
Pretty much anyone who enters Nelson’s orbit gets caught up in his gravitational pull, which often leads to comical and bleary results. While appearing on The Late Late Show with James Corden, actors Owen Wilson and Johnny Knoxville shared their own experiences stepping into Nelson’s world.
“Usually when you’re with Willie you won’t remember too much,” Knoxville prefaced. “When he offers it to you, there’s no way to say no.” Wilson concurred, reiterating that Nelson loves to bust out the sticky stuff during games of poker and, surprisingly enough, dominoes.
Woody Harrelson
Certain celebrities tend to gravitate towards Willie Nelson due to similar lifestyles. Woody Harrelson was known as a participant in pot smoking for most of his career, but in more recent years the actor has claimed that he had quit smoking for almost two years. That was until he ran into Willie Nelson.
“He was never comfortable with me quitting,” Harrelson joked on Ellen. “It just bothered him.” When Harrelson came face to face with some “Willie’s Reserve” weed, Nelson once again feigned ignorance and disbelief that Harrelson had quit, and finally Harrelson decided to break the streak. “I take a big draw off of it and he says, ‘Welcome home, son,'” Harrelson says with a smile on his face.
Timothy Olyphant
Nelson’s notoriety with marijuana is so pervasive that he doesn’t even have to be in the room to get people high. That’s what actor Timothy Olyphant found out when he visited the Austin City Limits festival, where he was offered a puff on weed that belonged to Nelson. Olyphant took two hits and proceeded to enter into another state of consciousness.
“I was with my brother, and I looked across the lawn. There was a golf cart not ten yards, and I said, ‘You know, I’m just gonna go and sit on that golf cart.’ I took like four strides and said, ‘…or I’ll just sit right here.” In a classic moment of stoner paranoia, Olyphant told his brother to write down his hotel room because Nelson’s weed was quickly erasing all of his thoughts and memories.
Snoop Dogg
The only man who can truly challenge Nelson’s status as Earth’s favourite stoner is Snoop Dogg, the American rapper who is as 4/20 friendly as any modern celebrity. The same man who claimed to be smoking 80 blunts a day back in 2013 is nearly impossible to out-smoke, but as he shared during an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live, Nelson got the better of Snoop.
“Willie Nelson is the only person that has ever out-smoked Snoop Dogg,” the rapper humbly claimed. “I had to hit the time out button.” This was during the recording of Snoop’s ‘My Medicine’, before which Nelson took Snoop on a tour of Amsterdam on April 20th. The resulting haze left Nelson as the last man standing, solidifying his place as pop culture’s cannabis king.
