Samuel L. Jackson Opens Up About Addiction Battle and How His Family’s Love Changed His Life

Samuel L. Jackson credits his family’s love for helping him “become the man I am meant to be.”

Jackson sat down with People magazine to talk about his marriage of  41 years to Broadway actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson. The couple discussed their love back then and the life they’ve created now.

The highest-grossing actor of all time recalled their struggles early in his career and was transparent about his battle with addiction and the emotional neglect of his family.

“I had basically moved into the basement of our brownstone,” he says. “I was like the troll in the basement, and every now and then, I’d come upstairs and hover around to do something. I was addicted and being crazy,” Jackson revealed.

Jackson explained that his wife LaTanya pushed him to go to rehab after making several calls to find a place for him. “She didn’t have to try to fix me,” he stated. “She could’ve just said, ‘Get out,’ and left me into the world, let me go and be whatever I was going to be,” he continued.

But she insisted, leaving him was not an option. The 72-year-old actress said: “I couldn’t do that because I felt as though God had spoken to me and said, ‘Now, you can’t leave this young man like this. Give him some help. And then, if you feel like leaving afterwards, we’ll talk about it.'”

Through all the ups and downs, the pair have stood by each other’s sides and have now joined forces to produce the Apple TV+ limited series The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey, a drama starring Jackson as a man with dementia caused by Alzheimer’s.

The couple hopes the series will create a deeper understanding of the disorder, which Jackson revealed runs in his family. “It was important for us to tell this story and show that there’s a life inside these people that needs to be explored,” he explained.