Dax Shepard Recalls the Messy Conan O’Brien Interview That Got Him Banned From the Show

Dax Shepard is opening up about the only “career wreckage-y thing” he did during the lowest place in his addiction, recalling a disastrous appearance on Conan in 2004 got him “banned” from the show in a new interview on The Pursuit of Healthiness podcast. Shepard is clearly intoxicated during the interview, falling backward over a chair and breaking a table during an interview that is clearly painful for Conan O’Brien.

Shepard revealed that he was “blackout” drunk during the pre-interview, waking up in his hotel room 20 minutes before the taping began. “I show up on the show, I don’t know what he’s talking about. I can tell he’s queuing me up for stories I’ve told, but I don’t know any of the stories. So, I’m just doing what I can to be funny out there and I am a mess,” Shepard recalled. “It was fine for the audience. But for him, what a disaster. I didn’t know any of the stories.” After that, Shepard was not allowed to appear on Conan “for some years, until I got sober and I got myself back on it,” but now has “been on it a bazillion times.”

That was a dark time in the actor’s life, as ahead of the Conan appearance, he got into a car accident on his way to buy cocaine, which ended up being crystal meth anyways. Shepard had to binge drink simply to get on the plane, which he said may be a familiar scene for other addicts. “In popular television shows and pop culture, we do have this notion of ‘a bottom,’ but most of the recovering addicts I know, there’s multiple, multiple bottoms,” he explained.

Shepard has been candid about his own sobriety journey, sharing in September on his own Armchair Expert podcast that he had relapsed and gotten sober again after an injury reintroduced him to pain killers. On The Ellen DeGeneres Show soon after, he admitted he didn’t want to come clean to his listeners but felt he had to in order to be real with people on their own sobriety journies. “I really cherish that,” he explained of having people at all stages of their sobriety reach out to him asking for advice or simply sharing their own experiences.

If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction, you can call the National Helpline for the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration at 1-800-662-4357.