Throughout his career, the former teen idol had extreme highs and lows. However, his use of ᴅʀᴜɢ ᴀᴅᴅɪᴄᴛɪᴏɴ as a crutch led to the downfall of his career.
What a babe he was. Leif Garrett began his career as a child actor before becoming a singer in the 1970s and setting young women’s hearts aflutter.
My mother told me that when she went grocery shopping with her parents, she noticed Leif’s face on all of the adolescent magazine covers at the checkout lines.
Born in Hollywood, California, the American singer-actor initially starred in the 1969 picture Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, which became the sixth highest-grossing film of the year, at the age of five.
Following that part, the sleepy-eyed, flaxen-haired hunk appeared in the film Walking Tall and its two sequels. He appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Outsiders in 1983, alongside Matt Dillon, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, and Tom Cruise, among other young heartthrobs.
Some may also recall him from his roles in TV shows such as Family, The Odd Couple (1974), Wonder Woman (1978), and CHiPs (1979).
In 1977, he released his debut album, Leif Garret, and fans went crazy when he sang renditions of classic 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 the world, and his admirers (mainly young ladies) went berserk whenever 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.
Despite the fact that his music was nearly at the top of the charts, he fought with management, who treated him as a “fraud.” Garrett found it difficult to adjust to maturity.
“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 began to decline in 1979, when drunk and drugged, he crashed a car and sent it tumbling down a slope in North Hollywood, paralyzing his then-close friend Ronald Winkler.
But that wasn’t enough for Garret, whose life proceeded to sink downward.
Garret reveled in s3x, drugs, and rock and roll with Queen’s legendary frontman, 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,” according to his book. Garrett stated that he became acquainted with the band, who showed him the true rock star lifestyle, complete with girlfriends 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 record of charges is substantial. He dropped out of treatment and had several encounters with the police, including attempting to acquire drugs from undercover detectives and concealing heroin in his shoe.
Despite his best efforts to claw his way back to the top, Garrett eventually reverted to his old behaviors. Garrett was chosen to contribute commentary on the comedy show World’s Dumbest, which recounts the “most amazingly stupid” criminals.
Other celebrities known for personal follies who appeared on the show included Todd Bridges, Tonya Harding, Gary Busey, and Danny Bonaduce.
Garrett then received a prominent part on VH1’s Celebrity Rehab with Dr. Drew, which he did not want to be on. Garrett accused the show of causing him to relapse for drama, which VH1 categorically rejected.
Garrett stated in an interview with the Los Angeles Times: “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 production counselor called him out, implying he was still using, Garrett walked off the set, stating, “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.”
