Since his days as the front man of the legendary Gap Band, Mr. “First name Charlie, last name Wilson” has been blessed with an almost nonstop career of music hits, thanks in part to artists like Pharrell, Snoop, Justin Timberlake and Kanye West who’ve helped keep his voice and legacy fresh with a new generation of listeners.
The Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter and BET Lifetime Achievement Award winner recently appeared on “The Steve Harvey Show” and opened up to his “long-time friend” about two of his biggest bumps along the road to success: homelessness and drug abuse.
“Whew, you finna make me cry now,” Wilson begins. “…sleeping in trucks, cars, parking lots, and I’d have a shopping cart with some plastic around it; a brick for my pillow and a piece of carpet. That’s what I laid on.”
Looking cooler than Freddie Jackson sippin’ a milkshake in a snowstorm, Wilson, 62 and a proud prostate cancer survivor, remembers the two years he was out on the streets of Hollywood in the early 90s, long after he’d already had fame. It was a cousin that he used to get high with who tracked him down and started him on the path to recovery.
“She was just crying so, so bad and she just hugged me for, you know, at least thirty seconds and she wouldn’t let go,” Wilson recalls. “And then when she let go she looked at me and she said, ‘Cuz, you dyin’ out here.’ I was like, ‘I ain’t dyin’!’ and she took out a mirror and showed me myself. I was like, whoa, who the hell is that? And I looked so bad, my skin was all patchy and dry and I’m a grown man and I was weighing a hundred and fifteen pounds.”
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Wilson was sick and tired of being sick and tired and didn’t resist when his cousin put him in rehab. While in rehab, his social worker was his angel. “She said, ‘I’ll help you. I won’t let your feet hit the ground.’ She got me a house, filled it up with furniture, everything, man. This woman I didn’t know from Adam.”
When he graduated from the program, that woman became his wife. Wilson and Mahin Tat have been married 20 years now.
He discusses all of this and more in his highly anticipated memoir, I Am Charlie Wilson (Simon & Schuster), slated for release June 30, 2015.
In the meantime, his latest CD, Forever Charlie, is in stores and you can catch his “Forever Charlie Tour” with soul brothers Kem and Joe.
See the emotional segment below:
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