Sarah A. Friedman and Aaron Neville.Photo:Courtesy Aaron Veville and Sarah A. Friedman
Courtesy Aaron Veville and Sarah A. Friedman
The R&B and country star, 82, is baring his soul in new memoirTell It Like It Is: My Story, out Sept. 5. In an exclusive excerpt along with a no-holds-barred interview in this week’s issue, Neville, who battled heroin addiction for decades, reveals that in more recent years he struggled with prescription drug abuse.
In 2005 Neville, a New Orleans native, and his first wife Joel Roux lost their home to Hurricane Katrina. Two years later Roux died from cancer, and Neville struggled with depression. He began using his late wife’s leftover pain medications.
“When Joel died I was a nasty case,” he tells PEOPLE of his despair. “I had been with her since I was 16 years old, I knew nothing.”
Aaron Neville and first wife Joel Roux.Acey Harper/Getty
Acey Harper/Getty
To fill the void, “I was just taking the pills that she had, morphine, Dilaudid, Trepidan, whatever,” he says. “And after that ran out, I would buy them in the streets, and I’d get a doctor to write a prescription. I was on the dark path.”
Then, in 2008, he met photographer Sarah A. Friedman, when she was hired to photograph him and his brothers for a PEOPLE photoshoot. Writes Neville in his memoir, “Either God, or Joel or both sent Sarah Ann Friedman into my life to stop me from the downward spiral I was on.”
The Neville Brothers in May 2008.Sarah A. Friedman
Sarah A. Friedman
The pair hit it off and began dating. “One day,” he writes, “we were getting ready to go out to eat and I stuck my hand in my pocket to get my car keys. When I pulled it out, about 15 Vicodins fell out onto the floor. Sarah was street smart and knew exactly what they were.”
The tense situation led to an instant ultimatum: “I’ll never forget the look she gave me,” writes Neville. “She gave me a straight choice, and it was a no-brainer. I chose Sarah. That was my last run with dope of any kind.”
Neville and Friedman, 54, married in 2010 and share a farm in New York. The star fully credits her for his happy, healthy life now.
Aaron Neville’s Tell It Like It Is.
“She’s been my angel,” he says. “I just told Sarah the other day, if it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t have no five Grammys, I wouldn’t have had my last couple of albums, and I definitely wouldn’t have wrote the book.”
For more on Aaron Neville’s fascinating life and long journey to sobriety, pick up this week’s issue of PEOPLE, available Friday.
source: people.com
