How Billy Idol Overcame Deadly Heroin Overdose

Billy Idol is getting real about his past struggles with drugs and a scary brush with death in his new documentary “Billy Idol Should Be Dead” which premiered June 10, 2025 at the Tribeca Film Festival. Read on to find out how the punk rocker narrowly escaped with his life.

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How Billy Idol Almost Died

People’s summary of the film details how the 69-year-old said in one scene that he “nearly ruined” his celebratory return home to England which was meant to be “a victory lap” after he achieved mainstream success by releasing several hits in the U.S.

The “Dancing With Myself” singer recalled, “We flew to London where we met a load of our pals that we knew. They had some of the strongest heroin.”

He explained that most of the group “nodded out” after doing “a line or so,” but Idol and another friend decided to keep the party going. He said he did enough heroin to make himself begin turning blue. “I was basically dying,” he declared.

Idol said onlookers rescued him by putting him in “an ice cold bath.”

Billy Idol Isn’t The Only Music Star to Suffer a Heroin Overdose

Along with Idol, the dangers of heroin have plagued several more singers. The drug was the cause of death for Janis Joplin, according to the BBC. The iconic rocker and member of “The Big Brother Holding Company” died in 1970 at just 27 years old, making her a part of the infamous “27 club” along with Amy Winehouse, Kurt Cobain, and Jim Morrison.

The report says Joplin’s accidental overdose took place at the Landmark Motor Hotel in Hollywood, just two weeks after the death of fellow music star Jimi Hendrix, who overdosed on barbituates.

Disney starlet turned pop singer Demi Lovato famously survived a heroin overdose in 2018 which gave her “three strokes and a heart attack,” according to her account of the harrowing incident.

In a 2024 interview with Andy Cohen, the “Sonny With a Chance” star called her overdose “the closest thing I get to a regret.” The star partially attributed her drug use to a lack of confidence. “I wish somebody had told me, one, that I was beautiful, because I didn’t believe it. And two, I wish someone would have told me that if you just sit with the pain, it passes. That you don’t have to use over it.”