Pink is opening up about some difficult moments in her past.
The singer has never been one to hold back, but in a new interview she went deep, sharing intimate details about her struggles with her parents and her “off the rails” partying that nearly killed her.
Speaking to Cecilia Vega on “60 Minutes,” Pink, whose real name is Alecia Moore, explained that when she was younger, she had a “chip on my shoulder.”
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“Basically I grew up in a house where every day, my parents were screaming at each other, throwing things,” she said. “They hated each other. And then I got into drugs. I was selling drugs. And then I was kicked out of the house. I dropped out of high school. I was off the rails.”
Before she was kicked out of her parents’ home in Pennsylvania, she recalled the situation being so bad that she and her mother once got into a physical fight that ended with her mom falling down a flight of stairs – something she called her one regret in life.
While she and her mother went on to reconcile, her drug use only got worse, and on Thanksgiving in 1995, when she was just 16 years old, she overdosed and nearly died.
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“I was at a rave,” she said, “and I overdosed. I was on – oh boy – ecstasy, angel dust, crystal, all kinds of things and then I was out. Done. Too much.”
“You almost died,” Vega noted.
“Yeah,” Pink agreed.
She said, “And I remember my friend was standing over me, smacking me across the face. And he was like, ‘Get up. You wanna sing, right?’ And I was like, ‘Yeah.’ He’s like, ‘Get on the microphone.’ So I got up and I sang. And the DJ there took me aside and said, ‘Come back tomorrow, I’ll give you a guest spotlight. But you can never touch drugs again.’ And I never did, haven’t since.”
Soon after, she landed her first record deal as part of an R&B girl group. After that label tried to change her image so much that they enrolled her in etiquette classes, she decided to go solo and take on the name Pink, her nickname. She embraced her tough demeanor, and it has worked out well for her – she has been massively successful since her debut album was released in 2000.
“This body, like, this, the muscles that, that scare people are — it’s my power, right?” she said. “It’s like, I don’t eat well to look good, I eat well to go far, fast and hard.”
It should not come as a surprise that she knows the importance of her mental strength as well.
“I realize that the machete that I’ve always carried, this metaphorical machete that I’ve always carried that made me a really difficult kid, is what makes me really good at what I do today,” Pink explained. “And it makes me a survivor.”
She continued, “I never got a record deal because I was cute; I got a record deal because I was fiery, I had a lot to say, and I had a voice. So I’m relieved I don’t have to fall back on– sort of conventional beauty. And– and that doesn’t have to be my thing. And I don’t have to keep that up, either, as I age. I don’t have to be that. I can be all of this.”