Drugs, Abuse & Health Woes: Inside Tom Petty's Secret Pain Before Tragic Death
Oct. 7 2017, Updated 12:30 p.m. ET
Tom Petty had just wrapped up a 6-month, nationwide tour to celebrate his 40th year with the Heartbreakers, when his own heart broke, sending him into cardiac arrest, and eventually killing him. But Petty had a history of health problems. Click through the RadarOnline.com gallery to learn more.
Tom Petty had just wrapped up a 6-month, nationwide tour to celebrate his 40th year with the Heartbreakers, when his own heart broke, sending him into cardiac arrest, and eventually killing him. But Petty had a history of health problems. Click through the RadarOnline.com gallery to learn more.
This last tour took a toll on the 66-year-old, and he was forced to postpone three shows in Northern California at the end of August.
“As Tom Petty heals from laryngitis and bronchitis, additional changes are required for the remainder of Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers’ Bay Area & Sacramento performances,” according to a note from the concert promoters. “We share this news with regret, but Tom’s doctor has advised Tom to take additional days off before performing.”
Petty was in a real bad place back in the early 90’s, when personal and work problems led him to an addiction to heroin.
“He’s a rock and roller. He had had encounters with people who did heroin, and he hit a point in his life when he did not know what to do with the pain he was feeling,” according to Warren Zanes, author of the book, "Petty: The Biography." “That happens when the pain becomes too much and you live in a world, in a culture, where people have reached in the direction of heroin to stop the pain.”
The "Wildflowers" singer said he hadn’t publicly admitted to the drug use because he didn’t want to glamorize the issue, calling his story a “cautionary tale” about getting involved in drugs.
“Using heroin went against my grain,” he said in the book. “I didn't want to be enslaved to anything. So, I was always trying to figure out how to do less, and then that wouldn't work. Tried to go cold turkey, and that wouldn't work. It's an ugly f***ing thing. Really ugly.”
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Another ugly chapter in his life came during childhood, when he admitted to being physically abused by his father.
“When my father got home later, he came in, took a belt and beat the living s**t out of me,” Petty shared. “He beat me so bad that I was covered in raised welts, from my head to my toes. I mean, you can't imagine someone hitting a child like that. 5 years old. I remember it so well.”
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