Kid Cudi Recounts Near-Fatal Overdose and Suicidal Ideation in New Memoir

In 'Cudi: The Memoir,' out Aug. 12, the rapper recounts crawling across the floor of his apartment in despair.

August 7, 2025

Kid Cudi in a black coat and dotted shirt stands against a dark background with logos.

Doug Peters/Variety via Getty Images

Kid Cudi isn’t holding back about one of the lowest points of his life and his near-fatal overdose.

In an excerpt taken from his upcoming memoir, Cudi, the 41-year-old rapper described a night alone at his New York apartment in Tribecat, high on more cocaine than he’d ever taken, per his admission, and crying for hours.

“I was at peace with dying,” he writes, per GQ, before saying he collapsed to the floor and felt paralyzed. “‘You made great music that people loved,’ I thought. ‘But this is the end.’”

“I couldn’t make sense of what was plaguing me,” he said further into the passage. “It was all happening so fast. The first Man on the Moon had been out for about a year and I was on a rocket ship. Grappling with fame pushed me toward cocaine, which I only ever did alone. I was drawn to it in isolation, and my time by myself was increasing.”

Cudi explained he once consumed small bumps of cocaine before escalating into daily “lines that were as wide as my pinky.”

He added, “I was feeling shut-in and I could barely even leave my house. The coke felt like a necessary countermeasure for my celebrity, but it was wreaking havoc on my life, creatively and personally. I had become super volatile emotionally. My relationships were in shambles, and I couldn’t get songs out like I wanted. The anger was boiling in me. My rage came from my reality not aligning with my dream.”

“My rage came from my reality not aligning with my dream,” he confessed. “I thought being set financially was going to save me and make everything all right. I thought being Kid Cudi would transform my life in all the best ways. It didn’t.”

He admitted that Man on the Moon II was fueled by his cocaine usage and that his suicidal ideation returned while recording Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven.

“After we’d finished a session, I’d be alone Googling exit bags,” he wrote. “I was thinking about a way I could actually do it. I was plotting it. There’s a song at the end of Speedin’ Bullet where I say good-bye, and that was meant to be my final album. I was going to kill myself at the end of that album, or before it came out, or during that cycle. I was not planning to live that year. Not many people around me expected me to either.”

Cudi: The Memoir hits stores on Aug. 12.