Country singer Ty Herndon says 2020 relapse made him suicidal

Country music star Ty Herndon says he was “inches away” from killing himself on New Years Eve 2020.

The “What Mattered Most” singer reminds Page Six that he had been awake for days, relapsed on crystal meth, and was clutching a handful of Ambien pills.

Although he doesn’t remember calling, he contacted a friend.

“It brought me enough to [ask for help]says Herndon, who has struggled with drugs since his twenties. “To know that I had mentally gone somewhere I didn’t need to be, I didn’t need to be [there]. It was not the moment. there was a fight [left in me].”

Herndon recalls being in rehab in Houston about 12 hours later when “a beautiful journey began.”

“It was the most painful and difficult journey I have ever undertaken, but I tried to leave no stone unturned,” he says.

The Grammy nominee, 60, burst onto the charts in the early 90s, but his tumultuous personal and professional lives have sometimes overshadowed his career, including a 1995 arrest for indecent exposure, a bipolar diagnosis in 2021, three crystal meth relapses and two marriages before coming out as gay in 2014.

Herndon, who is now 18 months sober, tells us that being sober is different this time around.

“The difference for me today is that I’m on fire. For music. I’m in love with myself for the first time in my life,” the Mississippi-born artist shares. “I have no secrets.”

Herndon named her addiction ‘Medusa’, adding: ‘She doesn’t live in this town. She’s in jail out of town. And I go there every day just to say, ‘You’re not [gonna] don’t get anything from me”, and make sure it is locked. »

He’s also ready for another comeback with a new album titled “Jacob” after the biblical character of the same name. He was inspired by another singer who struggled with addiction: Bonnie Raitt.

“My favorite artist, my God of music, is Bonnie Raitt. And she’s been through a lot,” Herndon says. “But after that, she made the greatest album of all time, ‘Nick of Time. ‘, and every song is a work of art.”

But even with new music, sobriety remains Herndon’s main goal.

“You have a responsibility every day to wake up and do this job because all it takes is a little crack in the foundation,” he notes.