Bow Wow revealed his addiction to lean was so severe he ended up hospitalized in 2007 — though his publicist at the time claimed he had suffered from dehydration.
“I was on lean. I was sipping so much syrup. I was drinking that s–t like crazy,” the “Basketball” rapper admitted on the “Art of Dialogue” podcast Monday of the drug, which is combination of promethazine and codeine cough syrup mixed with soda.
“I was losing my f–ing mind. That lean s–t had me f–ked up,” Bow Wow, whose real name is Shad Moss, recalled, adding that one side effect he frequently experienced was irritation.
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The “Let Me Hold You” performer’s addiction worsened to the point that he collapsed onstage and had to be rushed to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
“My stomach was so f–ked up that I ended up going back home to Atlanta after the first show,” he said, adding that he got “worse” upon his arrival at home as he started going through withdrawal.
“I’m throwing up, I’m shivering in the bed, I’m sweating, I’m going through it,” he remembered. “My stomach was so f–ked up. I felt like someone just had a knife [in me]. … I never felt this type of pain in my life.”
With the help of his then-publicist, Patti Webster, Bow Wow was able to hide his condition by claiming he had collapsed from dehydration.
“[There] wasn’t no dehydration; I was f–ked up off lean,” he confessed. “We didn’t want the world to know.”
The “Like Mike” star, now 36, shared that he has since kicked his addiction and learned to set “boundaries.”
Bow Wow first candidly addressed his drug issues in 2018 in the wake of fellow rapper Mac Miller’s death from a drug overdose.
“To the youth — stop with these dumb ass drugs,” Bow Wow tweeted at the time. “I’m going to let something out. When me and Omarion worked on FACE OFF album, I was high off lean everyday!
“When y’all saw me on BET going off on Torae I was high off lean,” he continued.
“My attitude, everything changed. My fans started to turn on me, my family too.”
