October 23rd, 2011 at 8:17 pm by
Anne

Darrell Hammond was part of Saturday Night Live from 1995 to 2011 and I don't know about you, but I would never have known this man was doing booze, coke and crack during that time. You'll remember him for his epic impressions of Bill Clinton, Dick Cheney and Al Gore but behind the comedy was great tragedy. He says in his new memoir God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked,” that he used drugs and alcohol as a way to escape a traumatic childhood:
“I kept a pint of Remy in my desk at work,” Hammond recalls in “God, If You’re Not Up There, I’m F*cked,” out Nov. 8 from HarperCollins. “The drinking calmed my nerves and quieted the disturbing images that sprang into my head … when drinking didn’t work, I cut myself.”
He then got involved with cocaine in 2002:
“I’d started adding an obscene amount of cocaine to my binges … I had to be creative about how I did it without other people catching on or letting it interfere with the work. At least too much.”
But the spiral continued to go downhill in 2009:
“I had the brilliant idea I should try crack,” he writes — and he spent time in a Harlem crack house.
I really don't know how his body survived all of that abuse. Darrell has since cleaned up his act and now remains straight and sober. His book comes out on November 8th and a copy was sent over to SNL last week but no comment as of yet. But Darrell has nothing but fond memories (despite being taken away from the NBC studios in 2008 in a straightjacket):
“I don’t have anything bad to say about anyone there,” he told us. “They all really went above and beyond the call for me.”
I don't recall ever hearing about any of this, do you? His impersonations were brilliant which is quite remarkable given his obvious state at the time. Are you shocked about these revelations?
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Photo: C. Smith/WENN