Grammy-winning music producer Timbaland is opening up about a frightening chapter of his life, revealing that his former addiction to prescription painkillers became so severe that he now believes he was slowly killing himself. He says that he came close to death on a daily basis.
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The 54-year-old hitmaker, whose real name is Timothy Mosley, discussed his battle with OxyContin during a recent appearance on the B High ATL podcast.
While reflecting on personal struggles, including his divorce and the death of Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell, Timbaland admitted that he didn't fully understand how dangerous his addiction had become.
"I ain't never think about suicide. But then I said, you know what? I was committing suicide every day. I didn't say it, but I was doing it," Timbaland shared. "My wife now, she watched me—said I stopped breathing in my sleep."
Music Producer Came Close to Death
The producer clarified that he wasn't deliberately attempting to end his life. Instead, he now recognizes that his daily drug use was putting him at risk of dying. Timbaland credited his religious faith with helping him survive the ordeal.
"I was killing myself slowly or fastly, I don't know," he recalled.
His struggles with prescription opioids began years earlier, after he started taking medication to manage lingering nerve pain from a gunshot wound he suffered as a teenager. What initially began as pain treatment eventually developed into a serious addiction.
During a 2023 appearance on Shannon Sharpe's Club Shay Shay podcast, Timbaland revealed that his dependence started with Vicodin before escalating to OxyContin. At the height of his addiction, he claimed to be taking approximately 160 milligrams of OxyContin daily.
The music producer eventually stopped taking the pills and has continued speaking publicly about his recovery.
He said, "Even though you're getting off, you still battling this psychosis that you don't know that's changing your personality, that's changing your your moods, that's changing everything about you, and you just got to be aware of that. And I just think that getting off the drugs is one thing, but then you got to go through the rehab of gaining who you are back."
