“I was a f*cking drug addict”—BMTH’s Oli Sykes opens up about addiction, rehab at the APMAs

Monday night (July 21) in Cleveland, Bring Me The Horizon had a very successful run at the inaugural AP Music Awards, taking home two awards—one for Best International Band and one for Best Album (Sempiternal). But when frontman Oli Sykes came onstage to accept the award for Best Album, he was ready to share a bit more than your typical acceptance speech. Sykes publicly admitted to his drug addiction for the first time.

“I wanna say something that I never thought I’d actually talk about,” he said, “Before we wrote Sempiternal, I was a fucking drug addict. I was addicted to a drug called ketamine. I was on it for years, and I was fucked off my head. My band wanted to kill me. My parents wanted to kill me. My fucking brother wanted to kill me. Everyone wanted to kill me. But they didn’t—they stood by me. They supported me through all that shit, and we wrote Sempiternal because of it.”

Noticeably nervous, the BMTH frontman then went on to explain his time spent in rehab and the support he received from his family, bandmates and fans.

“No one fucking knows this, but I went to rehab for a month, and through that time, you guys had no fucking idea that I was in rehab. But you were sending me letters. You were sending me text messages. You were sending me fucking emails. When I got out of that rehab, I didn’t wanna fucking scream anymore; I wanted to sing it through the rooftops, and it’s all thanks to you. So thank you very much.”

It doesn’t get much more sincere than that. Watch Sykes’ full speech below, and let us know your thoughts.