Seeks
Samuel L. Jackson: «I was like the troll in the basement»
Samuel L. Jackson talks about his addiction – and his family’s help. Photo: Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP/dpa
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With the Oscar, a great honor awaits him. But getting there was anything but easy for pulp fiction star Samuel L. Jackson.
According to his own words, Hollywood star Samuel L. Jackson (73) was rescued from his addiction as a young man by his wife.
“She didn’t have to try to heal me,” he said in a joint interview with the couple in People magazine (Friday). “She could have just said, ‘Go away’ and let me out into the world. She could have let me go and be what I wanted to be.” Instead, his wife insisted he go into rehab and called clinics to find a place for him.
Leaving her husband was not an option for her at the time, reported LaTanya Richardson (72): “I couldn’t do it because I felt like God had spoken to me and said, ‘You can’t leave this young man like this . Give him some help. And if you want to go after that, we’ll talk about it.”»
In the early years of their marriage, Jackson said he mostly lived in the basement of their New York home. “I was like the troll in the basement, and every now and then I would come upstairs to do something. I was addicted and crazy.” The love of his family helped him “become the man I should be”. At the end of March, Jackson will be awarded an honorary Oscar alongside his Norwegian colleague Liv Ullmann (83).
The ‘Pulp Fiction’ star has previously spoken candidly about the days leading up to his big break, when he was under the influence of drugs on New York theater stages and the impact addiction had on his young family at the time. Jackson and Richardson have been married since 1980. The actor couple has a daughter together (39).