REVEALED: Macklemore suffered drug relapse
The 32-year-old rapper, who battled addiction when he was younger, says he started taking pills and smoking weed again while working new music with collaborator Ryan Lewis due to the "pressure" of fame.
The 'Thrift Shop' hitmaker said: "I held it together for a while. But, eventually, I stopped going to my 12-step meetings. I was burnt out. I was super-stressed. We weren't sleeping -- doing a show every day, zigzagging all over the country.
"The pressure and the fame -- everything. All the clichés, man -- like not being able to walk around, having no privacy, and from this TV appearance to this TV appearance, and the criticism, and the lack of connection, and the lack of meetings -- all of that put into one pie was just...I just wanted to escape."
The Grammy winner became so "sneaky" and "deceitful" that he even went to important meetings while high, but finally decided to get sober in September after his fiancée, Tricia Davis, who found sleeping pills in his shoe at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas in March 2014, discovered she is expecting their first child.
The 'Same Love' hitmaker told the August/September issue of Complex magazine: "I've been trying to grow up this year. Since I heard that Tricia was pregnant, I was like, 'I need to grow up right now.'
"The sobriety was the wake-up call that I needed. My work ethic turns off-to-on in a second and I get happy again. I get grateful again."
