Kevin Gates has been through a lot in his life, opening up about his experiences and his career on a new Club Shay Shay episode with Shannon Sharpe. At one point of the interview, Sharpe asked Gates about his struggles with opioid and heroin addiction, in addition to marijuana and lean use, which led to a revealing and heartbreaking answer.
"I was so depressed, I just needed something to cope," he remarked. "I [didn't] want to live. Unc, I done shot myself in the head before, I got a bullet in my head. I ain't want to live, I was f***ed up. I'm holding my baby, my child, tears coming down my face. I'm knowing I'm about to go push my s**t out. Ain't nobody gon' miss me anyway. That's how I felt. And that wasn't that long ago. That was 2020."
From there, the Baton Rouge rapper spoke on "suffering in silence" and not making his struggles known, thinking that his kid would have another father figure. He said he wasn't on drugs back then, but felt strong feelings of inadequacy and didn't enjoy being onstage. Gates called his fitness journey back in 2019 a partial "cry for help," and credited a later trip to Puerto Rico as the start of his rebuilding process.
Overall, he wants folks to get the courage to speak up if they feel the same way he felt. Fortunately, it seems like Kevin Gates feels rejuvenated now and kicked his habits, crediting inner work as a path forward and "turning pain into passion."
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Kevin Gates' Club Shay Shay Interview
Elsewhere during his Shannon Sharpe interview, the two men also delved into the other struggles of the ISLAH artist. For example, Kevin Gates spoke on his deceased father and explained why he thinks he could've cured his father of AIDS.
"That's what made me get into holistic medicine," he expressed. "I was with him for a long time up until he passed. He taught me a lot of beautiful lessons. If I could go back in time, I could have cured him. I ain't Dr. Sebi or no s**t like that. I ain't trying to act like that, but I could have cured him. He's the one who made me take health so serious."
