Jamie Lee Curtis has been very open about her history with drug and alcohol abuse in recent years.
And during an interview with Variety for their Recovery issue, the Hollywood legend revealed even more intimate details about her struggle, including the time she used with another Hollywood legend — her father Tony Curtis.
“I knew my dad had an issue because I had an issue and he and I shared drugs,” the 60-year-old actress confessed. “I did cocaine and freebased once with my dad. But that was the only time I did that, and I did that with him.”
Tony — an Oscar-nominated actor who starred in over 100 films — was married to Jamie’s mom, Janet Leigh, from 1951 to 1962. He died in September, 2010.
“He did end up getting sober for a short period of time and was very active in recovery for about three years. It didn’t last that long. But he found recovery for a minute,” Jamie explained, noting addiction ran in the family as her brother, Nicholas, died of a heroin overdose at the age of 21.
The “Halloween” star’s harrowing bout with drug abuse began when she was prescribed Vicodin for a routine plastic surgery early on in her career. The procedure was prompted by a cameraman commenting on the puffiness of Jamie’s eyes during a film shoot.
“I naturally had puffy eyes. I’ve just always been that person, and we were shooting a scene in a courtroom with that kind of high, nasty fluorescent light, and it came around to my coverage in the scene, and [the cameraman] said, ‘I’m not shooting her today. Her eyes are too puffy.'”
Jamie was “mortified” and had plastic surgery afterwards to remove the puffiness. “They gave me Vicodin as a painkiller for something that wasn’t really painful.”
The actress suffered for years in silence as no one knew of her problem, not even her husband, Christopher Guest, whom she married in 1984. But one night when she was 40, a friend noticed Jamie sneaking Vicodin before a dinner and called her out on it.
“The jig was up,” Curtis revealed. “Now I knew someone knew. I had been nursing a secret Vicodin addiction for a very long time — over 10 years.”
She eventually sought help in 1999 and has been sober and in recovery ever since.
But how does an A-list actress maintain her sobriety while working in the temptation-filled world of Tinseltown?
“I bring sobriety with me,” Jamie said. “I was probably about nine months sober when I made “”Freaky Friday.” I put a big sign up by the catering truck, and it said, ‘Recovery meeting in Jamie’s trailer every day.’ I left the door open and didn’t know if anybody would show up.”
But people did.
“It was probably my favorite grouping of sobriety that I’ve ever participated in. I’ve participated in groups all over the world, but there was something about the cross section of ages and genders and jobs and races, and it was profound.”
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