Billy Idol on addiction struggles and the motorbike accident that almost cost him a leg
As the frontman of Generation X, Billy Idol looked to stamp his identity onto the expanding punk scene in the late 1970s, following in the footsteps of the Sex Pistols and The Clash. While Gen X made a name for themselves in the bustling London scene, they struggled to protrude internationally. Despite gaining nationwide appeal as one of the first punk outfits to grace the BBC’s Top of the Pops in 1977, Gen X struggled to permeate the charts, and their label began to reduce endorsement.
By 1979, Gen X had disbanded, and Idol looked to reinvent himself as a solo act. Through the early 1980s, he recorded material for his eponymous debut album, which brought a more refined and pop-oriented angle to his punk sound. The album launched him to international acclaim thanks to its catchy hits like ‘White Wedding’ and a new version of Gen X’s ‘Dancing with Myself’.
Following his seismic solo debut, Idol became a common feature of the burgeoning MTV channel on both sides of the Atlantic. His career grew from strength to strength throughout the 1980s as he became a pop-culture mainstay with an iconic look to match the voice. Just as he was set to make profound strides in an ancillary acting career, Idol ploughed straight into the biggest hurdle of his life.
On February 6th, 1990, Idol ran a stop sign while riding his Harley Davidson home from a Los Angeles studio and was struck from the side by a passing car. The accident left Idol grievously injured and turned the page to a darker chapter in his life.
In 2020, he released The Roadside EP, in which he finally reflected on the difficult period artistically. “It was just at the beginning of the pandemic, but I didn’t really want to write a song about the pandemic right then because it was all so new,” Idol told Yahoo Entertainment in 2021. “And so, I just thought about my own life. What could I write about in my own life?”
The prominent fruit of these reflections came in the form of ‘Bitter Taste’. The single marked the first time the star had ever written about “a life-changing thing that I had to face up to”.
“I was trying to forget about it, really,” Idol added, discussing the accident. “But I’d had plenty of time to let it kind of marinate inside me and then bring it out as a song… I was able to put it to bed, really. It was a particularly horrible, painful time, when I really didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t quite know if I could save my leg or, or whether it was going to be cut off… I’d really seriously damaged my leg, and I could have died in the accident. I was in hospital for a month, and I had seven operations.”
When he was struck by the car, Idol hadn’t been wearing a helmet. “I was lucky. I only have minimal kind of problems. I’m not too bad. But when you hit the concrete, it leaves its mark — psychological scars and physical scars. I think the accident gave me both.”
Thankfully, he managed to hang onto his leg, and with the addition of a steel rod, he was able to walk again. Beyond physical recovery, however, Idol awoke to a dawning realisation regarding his struggle with addiction.
Prior to the accident, Idol was set to star in James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day as the villainous T-1000 opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger. Unable to walk at the time of filming in 1990, Idol was replaced by Robert Patrick for the iconic role. What was supposed to be a major role for Idol in Oliver Stone’s The Doors biopic was also drastically reduced following the accident.
In 1990, Idol released his fourth album, ironically titled Charmed Life. He commissioned esteemed filmmaker David Fincher to direct the music video for the album’s lead single, ‘Cradle of Love’. With Idol still immobilised at the time of filming, Fincher had to make do with shots above the waist and turned him into a pop-art painting.
While the physical setbacks of the accident inflicted severe blows to Idol’s career, his biggest worries were for the future. Admitting that he was “a bit of a drug addict” at the time of the accident, Idol told Yahoo Entertainment that the crash was a wake-up call of sorts.
“I had to really think about my future, where I was going,” he said. “It was a bit of a watershed time for me. I had to change my life, had to think about things. I mean, I was kind of destroying myself, really. And I had young children as well at that time. I was thinking, ‘What am I saying to them by continuing to be a drug addict and nearly having an accident that seriously hurt me and possibly could have killed me?’… I needed to get ahold of myself. I was going to kill myself, or I was going to go crazy, or be locked up forever. The motorcycle accident was a good sign of ‘You’ve got to stop.’”
At the time of the accident, Idol was under the influence of alcohol and “some kind of Quaalude or something”. His addictions also involved “heroin and stuff,” which struck irony as he lay in a hospital bed being pumped with “the highest grade morphine”. Idol added: “Man, when you ever going to get something like this again? You’re never going to be this high again as you are in this hospital bed. This is the highest you can ever get!”
After the wake-up call, Idol “started to put the drugs in the back mirror,” but it “took years to kind of develop a discipline because I felt kept falling off the wagon.”
After ten years, “I kind of got hold of myself and didn’t go searching for drugs. Don’t go looking for hard drugs or anything — that’s one thing that helps; if you just don’t go looking for them! Now I don’t know anybody who sells them and stuff. It was just simple things, like not knowing or stop knowing people who’ve taken drugs. That’s just what I started to do, and over time it worked. It took a long time, though… You are kind of imprisoning yourself with drug addiction, so just as much just as it took some time to get into it and get caught by it, it takes a long time to free yourself. You’re never really completely free of it, either. Not really. I mean, you’re never free of it.”
Listen to Billy Idol’s reflective 2020 single ‘Bitter Taste’ below.
