Fatboy Slim Says the Thought of DJing Sober After Going to Rehab Left Him 'Paralyzed and Rigid with Fear'
Fatboy Slim Says the Thought of DJing Sober After Going to Rehab Left Him 'Paralyzed and Rigid with Fear'
Jack IrvinMon, June 29, 2026 at 6:00 PM UTC
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Fatboy Slim in May 2026Credit: Clive Rose/Getty -
Fatboy Slim spoke to BBC Radio 4 about going to rehab for alcohol addiction in 2009
The DJ described quitting alcohol as the hardest thing he’s ever done and credited rehab with saving his life
He said performing sober was initially terrifying
Fatboy Slim is opening up about sobriety.
The 62-year-old musician and DJ, whose real name is Norman Cook, got vulnerable in a new interview on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs series about feeling afraid to perform after getting sober.
Fatboy Slim rose to fame in the electronic music genre in the 1990s and earned global hits with songs like "Praise You" and "The Rockafeller Stank." In the Desert Island Discs interview, he recalled going to rehab in 2009 for an alcohol addiction after his then-wife Zoe Bell, whom he was married to from 1999 to 2016, threatened to leave him if he kept drinking.
Fatboy Slim in June 2026Credit: Dave Benett/Getty
"That was my wakeup moment," he said, per The Guardian. "There had been tons of people shouting at me before, but it was whispered very quietly in the end."
The artist continued, "Addiction is such a weird disease and it’s like a parasite, it protects its own. It knows that if you quit, it won’t have anywhere to live anymore, so it will do things to you to keep you."
Fatboy Slim explained he "wasn't really enjoying" alcohol for "probably the last year of my drinking," and his life wasn't in a good place at the time. He said quitting was "probably the hardest thing I've ever done" and noted that he did so "just in time."
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"I couldn’t have done it without going to rehab. I needed someone to bash into my head for a month," he recalled. "You know, ‘You’ll die, and you’ll be in misery if you don’t stop doing this.'"
Getting back on stage after quitting alcohol wasn't easy for Fatboy Slim. "For the first five shows, I was so paralyzed and rigid with fear, I couldn’t dance, and I couldn’t enjoy it," he said. "I was thinking: ‘What are you actually doing? Why are you going to play that record next? And why are they going to react to it?’"
However, one "beautiful night" of performing for a "really excitable" crowd in Japan helped him get through. "Everything sort of fitted into place," he reflected.
Fatboy Slim has several performances scheduled around the world this summer.
If you or someone you know is struggling with substance abuse, please contact the SAMHSA helpline at 1-800-662-HELP.
on People
Source: “AOL Entertainment”
