Robert Downey Jr. is sober these days, but he says he will never forget his ugly struggle with drug and alcohol addiction.
“Not having done drugs for literally five or six years is a lifetime,” he says in an interview in the November issue of Playboy. “I think of myself as someone who has no desire, use for or conscious memory of that life. And yet I don’t shut the door on it, and I don’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
He says he still has “very strong” recollections of his former self, whom he describes as a “messed-up kid … lost, lost in narcotics.”
Even today, Downey, 45, tells Playboy he feels like “a veteran of a war that is difficult to discuss with people who haven’t been there.”
And he doesn’t take his sobriety for granted.
“Looking back, I think, ‘Oh my God, I could have been done. I could have been so fried and so bad off and, oh my God, such a cautionary tale,'” he says. “And I still could be.”
An integral part to staying clean: “You take responsibility, whether you’re outraged by the results or not….” he says. People who think “‘I’m a victim; I’m being victimized!” are “out of line.”
Downey, who has a son, Indio, 17, and has been wed to producer Susan Levin for five years, also relies on self-discipline, which he says is “about respect. It’s not even about self-respect; it’s about respect for life and all it offers.”
He was already outnumbered in the family four to one, and now Matt Damon will add another little girl to his all-female brood.
The actor, 40, has confirmed that wife Luciana Barroso is expecting a girl – her fourth.
The Oscar winner, who filmed an appearance on the Late Show with David Letterman in New York yesterday, is already father to Isabella, 4, and Gia, 2, and stepfather to Alexia, 11, Luciana’s daughter from a previous relationship.
‘Raising girls is amazing. It’s a whole new world. There’s a lot of princess outfits, not for me though.
‘There are huge differences amongst the girls, kids are amazing like that, same parents, same environment but they’re all different.
‘And with each one it becomes exponentially more complicated.’
Heidi Klum, who recently retired from Victoria’s Secret, has signed on for her next big contract.
Klum, who quit VS after 13 years, is the new face of Ann Taylor, replacing Naomi Watts, according to the New York Post.
A source told the Post Klum will be the face of the retailer’s 2010 holiday campaign and the ads, shot by famed British photographer Rankin, “show the German supermodel layered in festive bling.”
Michael Jackson‘s complete library of videos is being restored and rereleased, as well as a never-released clip for his song “One More Chance.” The “Michael Jackson’s Vision” boxed set is due out on Nov. 22 and includes 4 1/2 hours worth of material, including the full version of “Black or White,” which was cut short after its initial release due to violent imagery and Jackson’s gyrations.
Jackson made a short film for the song “One More Chance,” but it was never released. He was charged with sexual molestation in 2003, right around the time the single was released. He was acquitted in that case.
Other videos include Martin Scorsese (Scor-say-zee)-directed “Bad” and his most famous video, “Thriller.”
— The Associated Press also contributed to this report
