To me, it feels like teenage heartthrob Leif Garrett does not get enough credit as an artist and performer. He deserved so much more!
Throughout his career, the former teen idol experienced extreme highs and lows, but the highs he sought through drug addiction, which he used as a crutch, resulted in him sinking his career…
Before you see him today, at 62, it might be good to hold your breath…
What a babe he was….. Leif Garrett started as a child actor, and in the 1970s, he set the hearts of young women to fluttering when he became a musician.
My mom told me that when she went to the grocery store with her parents, she could see Leif’s face on all of the teen magazine covers at the checkout lanes.
The American singer-actor, born in Hollywood, California, was 5 years old when he first appeared in the movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice in 1969, which became the sixth highest-grossing film of the year.
Following that role, the sleepy-eyed, flaxen-haired heartthrob featured in the film Walking Tall, along with its two sequels. In 1983 he joined a number of fellow teen heartthrobs, including Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise, in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders.
Some might also recognize him from his performances in TV series, like Family, The Odd Couple (1974), Wonder Woman (1978) and CHiPs (1979).
In 1977, he released his first album Leif Garret, and fans went wild when he performed covers of popular songs like The Wanderer (Dion), Surfin’ USA (The Beach Boys) and Paul Anka’s Put Your Head on My Shoulder.
Garrett was on top of the world. The blond, shaggy-haired singer toured worldwide, and his fans (mostly young girls) went crazy as soon as they saw him.
”I was on a public appearance tour in Sydney, Australia, and they had to fly me in by helicopter and then I jumped into an armored car and drove into the theater by back door. I’ve tried using a lim there before, but the fans almost tipped it over. I guess it’s an adrenalin push for them. They just freak out. It’s very weird,” Garrett told New York Daily News in 1979.
But even though his music was close to topping the charts, he struggled with management that made him feel like a “fraud.” The crossover to adulthood was also a challenge for Garrett.
“I think I was a good performer from the get-go but I wish they had offered me singing lessons before ever making a record and doing the typical punching in a sentence here or there or words or whatever,” Garret said in an interview.
“There’s a particular track (I Was Looking for Someone to Love) that doesn’t even sound like me at all. I would even possibly say I wasn’t even on that track. And to me, that IS fraud. That’s like a Milli Vanilli situation, the difference being, of course, mine was blended many times with myself and somebody else.”
Garrett’s career started to go downhill in 1979 when, drunk and drugged, he crashed a car and sent it tumbling down a hillside in North Hollywood, leaving his then-close friend Ronald Winkler a paraplegic.
But that wasn’t enough for Garret, whose life continued its negative spiral.
In 1980, a time he describes in his book as “the apex of pinup fame,” Garret revelled in sex, drugs and rock and roll with the legendary frontman of Queen, Freddie Mercury, who was at the time recording the hugely successful album The Game, which featured the hits “Crazy Little Thing Called Love” and “Another One Bites the Dust.” Garrett said he became friends with the band, who showed him a real rock star life with girls and drugs.
In an interview with Fox for the release of his memoir, Idol Truth, Garrett said:“I don’t think I was a very mature 16-year-old. I became mature very quickly because I was always surrounded by adults who were drinking and doing coke. I was a child, but being treated as an adult… And all of this was coming out of my pocket.”
He continued: “You know, I probably have the greatest fan base that I could ever imagine for myself. They have stuck with me through thick and thin. And as you know, I’ve gotten myself in plenty of bad situations. There was a lot of bad decision-making. But at the same time, I didn’t have the parental guidance that I should have at that time.”
Garret’s tally of charges is extensive. He dropped out of rehab and had numerous run-ins with the police, including whilst trying to buy drugs from undercover cops and trying to hide heroin in his shoe.
Despite making very effort at clawing his way back to the top, Garrett ultimately returned to his old habits. Because of his laughable experiences with the law, Garrett was selected to provide commentary on the comedy show World’s Dumbest, which chronicles the “most amazingly stupid” criminals.
The show also used other celebrities known for personal misadventures, like Todd Bridges, Tonya Harding, Gary Busey and Danny Bonaduce.
Then Garrett landed a starring role on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, a show he did not want to appear on. Garrett accused the show of having him relapse for drama, a claim emphatically denied by VH1.
In an interview the LA Times, Garrett said: “They asked to get some footage of me using, and I said, ‘I haven’t been using. They said, ‘We really have to get footage of you using.’ Anyway, I was easily talked into showing them.”
When a counselor with the production called him out, suggesting he was still using, Garrett walked off the show saying: “This is insanity and quite honestly I don’t appreciate it.”
Fortunately, Leif Garrett is sober today.
”I had a 90-day sentence in county jail. I was in court-ordered rehab before that, and then my mom visited and told me she had stage IV lung cancer. I said, ‘I’m leaving to take care of her—nobody lives with her.’ So dealing with that, I started using again. So it was like, ‘Cuff him, bring him in,’ and I did the 90 days, and that was it,” he says.
According to the former teen idol, he’s still very grateful for all his fans.
”I’ve kept every photo or letter that a young lady sent, telling me about being on their walls and kissing me good night before they went to bed,” Garrett told Closer. “It’s very surreal and a bit embarrassing, but how flattering! I can’t thank [my fans] enough, because I’m still able to do something I enjoy and get paid for it.”
We’re rallying behind Leif’s recovery and hope he can enjoy his life now!
We’d love you to share your thoughts on the former teen idol and his attempts at getting sober.
Lottie Moss had to rush to the hospital after accidentally taking too much Ozempic. The model shared that she experienced severe side effects from the drug, even though she only weighs about 9 stone.
Lottie Moss had to go to the hospital after taking too much Ozempic, which a friend had obtained from a doctor without a prescription.
The 26-year-old model became very ill, having a seizure and severe dehydration, even though she weighed about 60kg (9 stone). She said she would rather “die” than use Ozempic again. The drug is intended for people with obesity or diabetes and is currently in short supply worldwide.
Lottie Moss’s sister is Kate Moss, a famous supermodel known for her slim figure in the 1990s and her famous quote, “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels.”
Lottie described her seizure, which happened because of severe dehydration, as one of the scariest things she’s ever experienced. She said her face and hands clenching up was terrifying.
She mentioned that she wished she had known more before using Ozempic, and her weight dropped to around 53kg in a few weeks. After seeing doctors, she learned that the dosage she was using was meant for someone weighing at least 100 kilos, which is almost double her weight.
Lottie Moss has admitted to taking Ozempic and says she would rather ‘die’ than use it again
Lottie Moss explained that a few months ago, she wasn’t happy with her weight and had a friend who could get her Ozempic, but not through a proper medical channel. She didn’t go to a doctor for a proper prescription, check-ups, or tests, which are necessary when using a medication like Ozempic.
She said, “It’s a medication, and it’s dangerous. It’s meant for people with much larger body sizes. The dose I was using was for people who weigh 100 kilos or more, while I was in the 50s range.”
Lottie wished she had known more before taking it and now regrets her decision. She injected it into her leg and said it was the worst choice she ever made.
She shared a warning to others, saying, “If you’re thinking about taking it, don’t. It’s not worth it.”
On her podcast, Dream On, Lottie described the severe side effects she experienced, such as vomiting, a loss of color in her face, and a dramatic drop in weight. Before taking Ozempic, she weighed around 60 kilos, dropped to 57 kilos after the first dose, and reached a low of 53 kilos, which is just over eight stone.
Lottie Moss said she would rather not take Ozempic again, as it made her feel extremely nauseous.
She used it for two weeks, taking injections with a pen. Each week she had to take a new dose, and she felt sicker than she ever had before. She started with a lower dose but moved to a higher one, and ended up being bedridden for two days because she felt so ill and lost weight rapidly.
She began at about 60 kilos and dropped to 57 with the first dose, then to 54, and her lowest weight was 53 kilos. She described this rapid weight loss as unhealthy.
During those two days in bed, she wanted to stop taking the medication, but since it’s not like a pill you can just skip, it was already in her system and hard to stop. She even told her friend she couldn’t keep any food or water down and needed to go to the hospital because she felt so sick.
After being rushed to the emergency room, Lottie had a seizure because of severe dehydration. She described the experience as “horrible,” with her close friend having to hold her feet down while she contorted on the hospital floor.
Lottie, known from Celebs Go Dating, said the nurse was shocked when she learned the high dose of Ozempic Lottie had been taking and how much weight she had lost in just a short time.
She explained, “We went to the ER at 3 a.m., and when we told the nurse about the dose I was taking, she was horrified and said it was far too much. She also asked about my weight loss, and when I told her, she sent me straight to the emergency room, where I was wheeled through the hospital.”
Lottie added that she felt extremely sick and almost passed out when she went to the bathroom. Once she was in the examination room, she had a seizure due to dehydration, which she described as one of the scariest experiences of her life. Her friend Reece had to hold her feet down, and she felt her body and hands clenching up uncontrollably, making the situation terrifying and painful.
Lottie has talked before about how difficult it was growing up in the “toxic” fashion industry and her time in rehab for drug addiction.
She started modeling at 16 after being discovered when she was 13. She said she always felt like she was living in the shadow of her sister, Kate.
Lottie Moss has shared that she faced harsh criticism for eating on set during fashion shoots and was told by her modeling agency that she needed a 23-inch waist to walk in runway shows. She was traumatized by comments about her body and being called names like “the ham and cheese sandwich girl.” She feels lucky not to have developed an eating disorder.
Kate Moss, Lottie’s sister, was known in the 90s for the “heroin chic” look, which emphasized being extremely thin. She now regrets the phrase “nothing tastes as good as skinny feels,” and has talked about the negative comments she received from parents about their daughters having eating disorders.
Lottie believes that with the rise of Ozempic, a drug popularized by celebrities for weight loss, the harmful “heroin chic” trend is making a troubling comeback. She wants to use her experience to warn others, saying that Ozempic is meant for diabetes, not weight loss.
Lottie expressed concern that the media’s focus on extreme weight loss is harmful, especially for people with eating disorders or those struggling with their weight. She noted that the body positivity movement, which celebrated diverse body types and curvier figures, seems to be disappearing in favor of the old “heroin chic” trend. She encourages everyone to appreciate their body as it is and avoid extreme measures that could harm their health.
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