Kid Cudi: “I Couldn’t Deal With Fame”

In an interview with Headkrack’s Hip Hop Spot, Kid Cudi divulged the development of his acting career and spoke on his cold-turkey approach to quitting drugs and alcohol, citing his quick onset of fame as responsible for the substance abuse.

“For me, I just got to this point, and especially up until recently, I gave up liquor, I don’t drink anymore, it’s been five and a half months I’ve been sober,” Cudi said. “The booze was a new thing for me, I didn’t realize I was an alcoholic all these years. I had a problem, I think with any addiction you have to be ready to make the choice, whether it’s cigarettes or anything. You have to just commit and you just have to stick with it. I stopped everything cold turkey. When I had my cocaine problem I stopped cold turkey, I didn’t go to rehab. I don’t believe in these things. Some people need the extra help, not me. I wasn’t a drug addict before this crap, I wasn’t doing cocaine, I wasn’t getting wasted every night because I didn’t want to be alone. I wasn’t this dark person before the madness, I was a whole other dude. I don’t even think I smoked weed as much ‘cause we couldn’t afford it and I lived in Ohio, there’s no good bud out there—well there probably is now. You just have to make the choice and decide the person you wanna be and stick with it. You get to a certain age where the people around you are not gonna be on that rollercoaster all day long ready for you to go up, ready for you to go down, and stick with you through all the madness. People want you to be one person and stick with it and I chose to be clean and be sober and get my life together. For myself, for my health, for my daughter, for my family.”

Before detailing the point at which his celebrity grew significantly, Kid Cudi pinpointed his fame as the start of some of personal issues. “I couldn’t deal with fame, short and simple,” he said. “For me, I could not wrap my head around the fact that a week before I blew up I was just a regular dude and a week after it was just on, it was a whole other thing. When I first started getting recognized in the street it was cool, ‘cause it wasn’t extreme, it was just like, ‘Oh man I like your music. Could I take a picture?’ It was chill. But then when it started to be everywhere I went, it was hard for me because I never wanted to make that adjustment. I didn’t want to be like, ‘Oh now I’m famous now, I guess I gotta live a celebrity lifestyle.’ Spent twenty-three, twenty-four years of my life living a normal life, it was hard for me to feel like I needed to make that switch just because of my job.”

Kid Cudi Talks About Auditions And His Acting Career

Speaking on the arc of his acting career up to this point, the rapper described his recent role in the Need For Speed film. “I’ve been blessed,” he said. “You go in a bunch of auditions and hope you get something and you run into a couple people that believe in you. That’s awesome you know, I’m excited…I’ve auditioned for movies and lost roles to people. I never get bitter, I know a lot of actors they get down on themselves and they get bitter and upset. I look at it like everything happens for a reason, it wasn’t my destiny. I just take it in stride, I don’t really dwell.”

Breaking down the decision to use his given name as an actor in lieu of his stage name, Cudi referenced his recurrent role in the HBO series How To Make It In America as an important learning process. “That was strategic, man,” he said. “I think ever since How To Make It, when I got that opportunity—‘cause that, for lack of a better phrase, kind of fell into my lap that opportunity. Ever since then, even when we got to develop the second season for How To Make It I was adamant about telling the writers and the producers and the director of the show that I did not want to play a character that was in any way, shape, or form reminiscent of my musical persona. For me, it was important to separate the two things. Kid Cudi, I am a musician, you know, but then also I have this other passion that is acting and it’s completely separate. To separate the two will allow people to watch a film like Need For Speed and consume me in the character. Since then it’s been a lot of making sure I’m choosing the right things and I’m not just jumping at the first opportunity to do a movie. I’m not in any rush, I take the same plan of attack that I do with my music with film, just like I don’t do every feature with everybody and I’m not all over the place, it’s gonna be the same deal with my acting career. I’m not in any rush, I’m still very young. And I just turned 30 by the way everyone.”

RELATED: Kid Cudi Says He Wants To “Help Kids Not Feel Alone And Stop Kids From Committing Suicide”