Robin Williams’ friends lay bare brutal truth about his ‘monster’ drug addiction – revealing comedian ‘couldn’t go on stage without blow’ and once ‘accidentally’ snorted an entire GRAM of cocaine

Friends of Robin Williams have recalled his wildly erratic behavior at the height of his cocaine addiction – revealing the late actor could not go on stage and perform without the drug.

Williams – who died by suicide in August 2014, aged 63 – struggled with substance abuse issues while launching his career in the late 1970s and early 1980s, before being shocked into sobriety after the death of his friend John Belushi from a fatal overdose in 1982.

Williams’ life is put under the microscope in the second season of Vice TV’s Comedy Dark Side, and his friends have shared amazing anecdotes from his battle with narcotics.

According to longtime friend and comedian Allan Stephan, Williams was unable to go on stage without snorting cocaine.

Recalling one particular conversation with the late actor, Stephan recalled, “He said, ‘Know anybody with any kicks?’ I have to go on and I can’t go on without a shot.”

“And I sat down and said, ‘I’m going to help you.’ He said, ‘Do you have hits on you?’ I said, ‘No, are you out of your mind?’ You’re Robin Williams.” And after that, I don’t think he’d get up to where he was before.’

Friend Mike Binder, a fellow comedian and filmmaker shared a similar story.

“One night we went to a place called Flippers Discoteque in Hollywood, and I drank like a gram of coke,” he said.

After learning he was dealing cocaine, Mike recalled Williams saying ‘oh let me have that’ and ‘do you mind if I hit him in the bathroom?’

“It came back and it was empty,” Mike said. ‘It was like, woah. It was 20:15 at night. I said, “Robin, did you do the whole gram?” He said: “It was an accident, sorry.”

“On drugs, he was a monster,” added Mike.

Williams’ drug and alcohol problems first surfaced when he starred on Mork & Mindy.

Director Howard Storm detailed Williams’ cocaine use in the biopic Robin, by New York Times reporter Dave Itzkoff, revealing that he would appear on set looking “a wreck”.

He wrote: “He hadn’t slept all night. He was snoring, and if you snore, you drink alcohol to come down. He was out all night robbing everyone in town.’

However, Williams stopped doing cocaine after the death of Saturday Night Live comedian Belushi, who overdosed on a lethal combination of heroin and cocaine, on March 5, 1992.

The night before Belushi’s death, Williams had been partying with the star at the Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles.

“The Belushi tragedy was terrifying,” he told People in 1988.

“His death scared a whole group of showbiz people. It caused a huge drug exodus. And for me, the baby was coming. I knew I couldn’t be a father and live that kind of life.’

Williams spent the next two decades sober, before relapsing with alcohol in 2005.

He sought treatment for his addiction in rehab in 2006, before later returning a month before his death in August 2014.

Williams had no illegal drugs or alcohol in his system when he took his own life, a medical examiner’s report confirmed in November 2014.

It was also revealed at the time that the actor had been battling a recent diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease, as well as anxiety, paranoia and depression.

The legendary comic battled paranoia, according to the coroner’s report, and the night before he died, he put several wristwatches in a sock and gave them to someone because he was concerned about their safe keeping.

“On August 11, 2014, the Marin County Sheriff’s Office Bureau of Investigation and Detective Divisions began an investigation into the death of Robin McLaurin Williams, who was pronounced dead at 12:02 pm at 95 St. Thomas Way in unincorporated Tiburon, California,” the report said. .

‘Investigations into the death of Mr Williams have been completed with the Medical Examiner’s Division issuing the following findings: Cause of Death: Asphyxiation by Hanging, Manner of Death: Suicide.

“The toxicological evaluation revealed the absence of alcohol or illegal drugs. Prescription medications were detected at therapeutic concentrations.’

The report says the last outgoing call from Robin’s phone was at 7.08pm the night before he died. He had called his wife Susan, and it lasted 38 seconds.

In 2021, Williams’ son Zak spoke about his father’s battle with drink and drugs, explaining that he himself began to experience similar problems with his own mental health, which led him to turn to various substances illegal.

“I used to have obsessive-compulsive disorder – having to count several actions before going to bed at night, obsessing over things. I didn’t sleep much as a child,” he said in Prince Harry and Oprah’s Apple TV+ documentary on mental health.

“I had really bad insomnia, a lot of energy and a quick mind, and I inherited that to some extent.”

Explaining how this led to drug abuse, he continued: ‘As a teenager, I found consuming alcohol and drugs helped me calm my mind.

“It became a very normal experience to rely on them and things like that to manage the mind of the race.

I began to understand elements of myself (my father). My anxiety, my periods of depression, OCD, drugs, drinking like that.

“When I wasn’t self-medicating, things felt completely overwhelming. And it just became part of my identity to get through the day.’