Kid Cudi Admits He Nearly Took His Own Life While Recording “Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven”

Kid Cudi is revisiting some of the darkest moments of his life in his upcoming memoir, set to release on August 12.

In a newly published excerpt from GQ, he reveals that during the creation of his 2015 album Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven, he was not only struggling with addiction but also actively planning to end his life.

At the time, he had rented a house in Big Sur to work on the album. Behind the scenes, however, he was researching methods to die. “After we’d finished a session, I’d be alone Googling exit bags. I was thinking about a way I could actually do it. I was plotting it,” Cudi wrote. He added, “There’s a song at the end of Speedin’ Bullet where I say good-bye, and that was meant to be my final album. I was going to kill myself at the end of that album, or before it came out, or during that cycle. I was not planning to live that year. Not many people around me expected me to either.”

Long before that, during the recording of his 2010 album Man on the Moon II, Cudi was already deep in a cycle of drug use and emotional pain. “I started working on Man on the Moon II a few months before I almost overdosed. The drugs were heavily involved in its creation; they put me in a dark mindset. I felt like I had demons latched on to me. I needed to soundtrack the moodiness I was feeling,” he wrote.

His drug use had escalated quickly and severely. “At first, I was doing bumps, but I had quickly worked my way up to heavier and steadier quantities. I’d make lines that were as wide as my pinky and do them back-to-back throughout the day, every day. When I would get after it, I would really get after it. I was a maniac. That’s why that second album was so drug-riddled, because that’s what got me through. I wouldn’t have been able to do it if I didn’t have something to push me.”

Then In 2016, Cudi entered rehab for cocaine addiction, and since then, he has remained open about his ongoing struggle with depression and mental health. While fans were aware of his battles, the new memoir marks the first time he has revealed just how close he came to dying.

Cudi’s story adds another chapter to the growing conversation around mental health and substance abuse in the music industry.

His willingness to share these deeply personal moments highlights the silent pain many artists endure beneath the surface of their success.