Bring Me The Horizon frontman Oli Sykes used his acceptance speech during the recent Alternative Press Music Awards to thank his fans for helping him through a previously undisclosed ketamine problem. Sykes was accepting the Album of the Year award for BMTH’s Sempiternal.
“I want to say something that I never thought I’d actually talk about,” Sykes began. “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,” he added, elaborating on the toll it took on his personal life.
“My band wanted to kill me, my parents wanted to kill me and my fucking brother wanted to kill me. Everyone wanted to kill me, everybody wanted to fucking take me to hell, but they didn’t. They stood by me, they supported me through all of that shit and we wrote Sempiternal because of it,” he said.
Sykes then opened up about a stay in rehab, crediting his fans with helping him through. “No one fucking knows, no one fucking knows this, but I went to rehab for a month, and through that time, as well as my fucking band and my family, you guys – you had no fucking idea that I was in rehab – but you were sending me letters, you were sending me texts, you were sending me fucking emails.”
“And when I got out of that rehab I didn’t want to fucking scream anymore, I wanted to sing it from the fucking rooftops. And it’s all thanks to you, so thank-you very much,” he concluded. As NME reported, Sykes referred to his struggle with addiction during a set at Reading Festival 2013, he described himself as formerly a “worthless drug addict” and thanked the fans who “saved my life.”
Watch: Bring Me The Horizon’s Oli Sykes’ APMA Album of the Year Acceptance Speech
Gallery: Bring Me The Horizon – Hordern Pavilion, Sydney 6/10/13
Photos by Zoltan Blazer
Bring Me The Horizon @ Hordern Pavilion 2013
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