Dennis Quaid opens up about his former battle with cocaine addiction

Dennis Quaid tells Megyn Kelly just how bad his addiction to cocaine got in an interview that will air this Monday on Today. 

The actor, 64, said he began using the drug when he first arrived in Hollywood, noting that it was everywhere he went and even in the budget of some films.

He then got to a point where he was sleeping for just one hour a night, Quid confesses in a clip obtained by DailyMail.com.

The actor says he would vow to quit but then be back at it by 4pm every day, until he saw himself dead in what he calls a ‘white light moment.’

Dennis Quaid has revealed that his cocaine addiction in the 80s got so bad that he was only sleeping for an hour a night 

‘I grew up in the 60s, 70s, and there was a completely different attitude about it back then. Even in some movie budgets. I kept roaring on,’ says Quaid.

‘I was basically doing cocaine pretty much on a daily basis during the 80s. I spent many, many a night screaming at god to please take this away from me, I’ll never do it again because I’ve only got an hour before I have to be at work.’ 

‘Then about 4 o’clock in the afternoon I would be “oh that’s not so bad’. I had a white light experience where I saw myself either dead or losing everything that meant anything to me.’

This is not the first time Quaid has spoken about his struggle with drugs.

Quaid, 64, said he began using the drug when he first arrived in Hollywood, noting that it was everywhere he went and even in the budget of some films

Quaid, 64, said he began using the drug when he first arrived in Hollywood, noting that it was everywhere he went and even in the budget of some films

In 2011 the actor wrote a piece for Newsweek in which he detailed that same ‘white light moment’ while playing with his band.

‘One night we played a show at the China Club in LA, and the band broke up, just like in the movie The Commitments, because it all got too crazy,’ wrote Quaid,

‘I had one of those white-light experiences that night where I kind of realized I was going to be dead in five years if I didn’t change my ways. The next day I was in rehab.’

Quaid also revealed that it was at the height of his career when he started to hit his rock bottom.

Quaid only got help when he said he had a 'white light experience' where he saw himself either dead or losing 'everything that meant anything to me'

Quaid only got help when he said he had a ‘white light experience’ where he saw himself either dead or losing ‘everything that meant anything to me’

‘By the time I was doing The Big Easy, in the late 1980s, I was a mess. I was getting an hour of sleep a night,’ wrote the actor.

‘I had a reputation for being a “bad boy”, which seemed like a good thing, but basically I just had my head stuck up my ass.’

The actor, who has only spoken about his marriage to Meg Ryan a handful of times since the two split, also confesses that his ex-wife’s fame did weigh on him during their union in another clip from Monday’s show.

‘When we met you know I was the big deal and then my career [came to a halt],’ Quaid tells Kelly, driving the point home by making the sound of screeching brakes.

‘And I have to admit it, I actually did feel like I disappeared.’ 

Quaid and Ryan were Hollywood’s golden couple throughout the 90s, with the pair tying the knot on Valentine’s Day of 1991 after falling in love on the set of their film D.O.A.

It was the second film they had done together after Innerspace.

Quaid was a huge star in the 80s, having appeared in hit films including The Big Easy, The Right Stuff, Postcards from the Edge and Great Balls of Fire.

Quaid also admitted that he started feeling small when his wife Meg Ryan's career began to ascend his in the 1990s (pictured together in 1995) 

Quaid also admitted that he started feeling small when his wife Meg Ryan’s career began to ascend his in the 1990s (pictured together in 1995) 

But his past success did not stop his wife’s ascent from shaking his nerves and rattling his brain.

Ryan was also a household name in the wake of her role in the 1989 classic When Harry Meet Sally, but two years after she and Quaid wed she suddenly became the biggest star in Hollywood with the release of Sleepless in Seattle.

This boost was aided in great part by the late writer and director Nora Ephron’s affinity for Ryan.

Ephron wrote both Harry and Sleepless, wrote and directed Ryan’s 1997 hit You’ve Got Mail, and produced Hanging Up in 2000, which was released just as Quaid and his wife announced their split

The couple, whose son Jack was born in 1992 and starred in The Hunger Games, were divorced by 2001 with Ryan getting almost all the blame amidst rumors she had an affair with Russell Crowe.

Quaid and Ryan were Hollywood's golden couple throughout the 90s, with the pair tying the knot on Valentine's Day of 1991. They are pictured here in 2000 

Quaid and Ryan were Hollywood’s golden couple throughout the 90s, with the pair tying the knot on Valentine’s Day of 1991. They are pictured here in 2000 

Ryan would later claim it was Quaid who strayed during their marriage, and since 2010 has been in a relationship with John Mellancamp.

‘It was a growth opportunity, I did learn from that,’ Quaid tells Kelly of his marriage to Ryan in his Today interview.

He also recalls how almost overnight he found himself walking alongside his wife on the street as fans screamed: ‘MEG! MEG! MEG!’

Quaid would later remarry but split from third wife Kimberly Buffington in 2016.

The younger brother of Randy Quaid is now dating Santa Auzina, a 32-year-old model.

More about Quaid’s marriages will be revealed on Today this Monday when the interview airs on NBC at 9am on Megyn Kelly Today.

Kelly sat down with Quaid to talk about playing Ronald Reagan in an upcoming biopic about the Republican leader.

And for that interview, Kelly flew out to the Reagan Ranch near Santa Barbara, California.

The actor also talks with Megyn about being a father, a few of his memorable co-stars and which roles have been his favorite over the years. 



Read more at DailyMail.co.uk