Pink Recalls Nearly Dying After an Overdose at a Rave

Pink has shared new details about her past, including a near-fatal overdose that came just weeks before she signed her first record deal. The singer, now 44 years old, gave an interview with 60 Minutes this weekend about her rise to fame, including the more painful moments that she tends to reference vaguely in her lyrics. She told CBS News’ Chelsea Vega that her bad circumstances left her with a bad attitude and a bad outlook.

“I was a punk. I had a mouth. I had a chip on my shoulder,” Pink said. “Basically I grew up in a house where every day my parents were screaming at each other, throwing things. They hated each other. I got into drugs. I was selling drugs.” Pink said that she was kicked out of the house for her drug use and that she dropped out of high school. She said that her overdose came around Thankgiving of 1995, and at the time she was “off the rails.”

“I was at a rave and I overdosed,” she said. “I was on ecstasy, angel dust, crystal, all kinds of things. Then I was out. Done. Too much.” When Vega asked if the overdose had been near-fatal, Pink answered: “Yeah.”

At that point, Pink said she made the decision to stop using “hard drugs” and started focusing on her music career more seriously. It was only weeks before she signed her first record deal – a deal for her all-girl R&B group Choice. She was 16 years old at the time.

Pink was born in Doylestown, Pennsylvania and remained there until her career took off. According to a bio published by PEOPLE Magazine in 2010, her father, James Moore was an insurance salesman while her mother, Judith Kugel was an emergency room nurse. Her father reportedly taught her survivalist skills he learned while serving in the Vietnam War, while also introducing her to the formative music of her youth. Her parents’ marital problems began when she was a toddler and they divorced before she turned 10.

Pink has discussed her past drug use in some interviews before, including a 2012 discussion with Shape Magazine. She said that the morning after her fateful overdose, “I remember getting up off the floor in the morning – and that was the last time I ever touched a drug again. It was also the day a DJ offered to let me sing on hip-hop night. His only caveat was that I couldn’t do drugs, so I didn’t. That’s the thing with me – once I make up my mind, I’m done.”